WIFR reports that the Illinois legislature has passed a bill to regularly train healthcare providers who serve adults with dementia. The bill was jointly developed by Lt. Governor Juliana Stratton and the Alzheimer's Association Illinois Chapter, and now heads to Gov. J.B. Pritzker's desk for his signature. "This bill ensures that healthcare professionals are educated on identifying the signs which can lead to a better diagnosis of Alzheimer's and other related dementias," Stratton said. "We are one step closer to Illinois becoming a dementia capable state." Under the bill, licensed healthcare professionals who have direct patient interaction with adults age 26 and older must commit one hour of their existing continuing education requirements to training on diagnosis, treatment, and care of individuals with Alzheimer's disease and other dementias. The curriculum will feature material on identifying and diagnosing Alzheimer's, effective communication, and management and care planning. "This bill equips all healthcare professionals, including those serving Black, Brown, and rural communities, with the knowledge to provide better access to care for the individuals who show signs of the disease," Stratton said.

The Pennsylvania Department of Aging announced that it will use a three-year, $270,295 Administration of Community Living (ACL) grant to expand its Healthy IDEAS (Identify Depression and Empowering Activities for Seniors) Program, reports ABC-TV 27 . Pennsylvania is the first state to independently train and administer the Healthy IDEAS Program and convene the aging network and the mental/behavioral health community to enhance benefits for older adults and their families impacted by depression. The program is undertaken by trained staff in-person, by phone, or video chat over three to six months. The new grant will be used to better identify and tackle depression among older adults. "This ACL grant allows the department to increase the capacity of our aging network to assist more seniors and strengthen relationships with community behavioral health resources and medical providers throughout the commonwealth," said state Secretary of Aging Robert Torres.

The Seattle Times reports that COVID-19 cases among residents of Florida nursing and assisted living communities have plummeted 90 percent since January, with senior advocate organizations monitoring new case numbers and hospitalizations to gauge the duration of vaccine immunity. Brian Lee, director of the nonprofit Families for Better Care, is concerned that health officials are not paying close enough attention to the senior population. He noted that the Florida Department of Health has, as of press time, not updated the number of cases and deaths among long-term community residents and staff on its public-facing dashboard since May 5. For the time being, the Florida Health Care Association said it is pushing to get all residents and staff vaccinated with the two doses they need for initial immunity. About 74 percent of nursing community residents are vaccinated, up from 68 percent six weeks earlier, while the vaccinated assisted living resident segment remains the same at about 93 percent. "All of us are pleasantly surprised at how effective the vaccines have been," said Florida AARP Director Jeff Johnson. "But if there becomes a need for a booster, I think we are going to see it first in those who were first vaccinated and most vulnerable. No one seems to be focused on planning for when that happens."

A new survey of 1,016 people from AARP finds most Americans 50 and older — 85 percent — are against cutting Social Security or Medicare benefits to reduce the federal budget deficit. Moreover, 87 percent of Democrats, 79 percent of independents, and 88 percent of Republicans strongly oppose Social Security cuts;, 87 percent of Democrats, 80 percent of independents, and 86 percent of Republicans also strongly oppose reductions to Medicare benefits. Forty-nine percent of all Social Security beneficiaries over age 65 depend on the program's benefits for at least half their income, while roughly 25 percent of Social Security beneficiaries over age 65 live in families that rely on Social Security for at least 90 percent of their income. The Time to Rescue United States' Trusts (TRUST) Act would establish small "rescue committees" to propose changes to Social Security and Medicare, and who could fast-track the reduction of these programs and effectively prevent any changes to such measures after they go to the U.S. Senate or House. AARP fiercely opposes this and other such measures, calling for broad public debate instead.

Long-term care advocates say a plan for a potential COVID-19 booster shot is needed immediately, concerned that long-term care residents will be the first to suffer if the coronavirus vaccine wears off, reports ABC News . According to Thaddeus Stappenbeck at the Department of Inflammation and Immunity at Cleveland Clinic, the part of the immune system governing antibody production declines with age. Vaccine companies and health officials therefore need to act now before immunity flags among the older people in nursing communities who were among the first during the pandemic to be immunized. The CEOs of vaccine makers Pfizer and Moderna said last week that the first in the United States to get a vaccine could need a booster by this fall. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci thinks a booster shot will be necessary eventually. "The shame of this is that when COVID-19 runs rampant in a nursing community the mortality rate is significant," said Mike Wasserman on California's Vaccine Advisory Committee. "Hence, if and when the residents' immunity wanes, we must be on high alert, lest we relive the horrors of the past year."

An Australian developer is launching a smartphone-based application in Britain that uses facial analysis to detect chronic pain in people with dementia, reports Pharmaphorum . The PainChek app can help care workers and clinicians identify and manage pain in people with conditions like Alzheimer's disease. The tool uses an algorithm that provides a readout in real time and can automatically update medical records in the cloud. Using the smartphone's camera, carers can capture an individual's face, and PainChek uses facial recognition to automatically detect muscle movements indicative of pain. The app can be downloaded from Apple's App Store and Google Play by registered users, and PainChek says it has already made direct sales to dementia care units in the United Kingdom. The app has been licensed by U.K. care providers representing some 50,000 beds, and is already employed in roughly 80 percent of Australia's 180,000 aged care beds. "We are now looking to extend . . . integration agreements into the home care sector where the majority of people with dementia currently live, as well as progressing our international expansion plans," says PainChek CEO Philip Daffas.

A study presented at the recent Latinos and Alzheimer's Symposium found that Latinos' experience of dementia signs and symptoms may differ from that of Blacks or non-Hispanic whites, marked by more depression and anxiety and a faster rate of functional decline, reports AARP . The researchers compared the rates of anxiety and depression in about 5,000 people and split them into Hispanics, Blacks and non-Hispanic whites and then into cognitively normal, mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and Alzheimer's disease (AD) carriers. Overall, Hispanics reported more anxiety than either Blacks or non-Hispanic whites, while Hispanics with MCI or AD also noted more anxiety and depression than their peers with those maladies. Anxiety and depression are established risk factors for dementia, and previous research has suggested they can be very early signals of abnormal amyloid and tau protein accruals in the brain. "We have lots of great evidence that medications and talk therapy help, but minorities have the lowest rates of getting this help," said University of Miami Health System clinical psychologist Michael Cuccaro. "We need to do a better job of making mental health services accessible for these groups, with culturally informed providers who speak the same language."

Skilled nursing communities should expect certain U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) policy changes to be canceled once the pandemic ends, reports Skilled Nursing News . Harvard Medical School Professor David Grabowski expects a reversion to pre-pandemic rules, including the rescission of waivers designed to allow greater discharge of Medicare patients from hospitals to post-acute care settings. Some waived regulations include the three-day stay rule, which mandates that a patient must have a three-day inpatient hospital stay for Medicare to pay for the subsequent stay in a skilled nursing community. Avalere Managing Director Fred Bentley expects that requirement to be reinstated, as the waiver saw prominent use in markets that were most severely hit by COVID-19. He said the original rules were imposed as a guard against overuse and "wasteful care," and ensuring the appropriateness of patients coming from the hospital to different post-acute care settings. Although Grabowski believes these rules will return after the pandemic, he also suspects improvements made to telehealth may become permanent.

CDC has said vaccination sites should not miss a chance to administer COVID-19 vaccine doses to any individual, even if it means the remaining doses in a vial will be discarded, reports the Wall Street Journal (May 21, Wernau, Abbott). As part of the nation's effort to reach unvaccinated people, authorities are sending vaccines to smaller settings like physician's offices and pop-up clinics. In general, the more doses a vial contains, the more likely doses may be wasted. Johnson & Johnson vials contain five doses, Pfizer-BioNTech vials contain six, and Moderna vials contain about 10 doses, but the company was recently permitted to begin filling vials with as many as 15 doses. Once a vial is punctured, the doses must be used within 12 hours for the Moderna vaccine, six hours for Pfizer-BioNTech's vaccine, and two to six hours for Johnson & Johnson's depending on how they are stored.

Although COVID-19 outbreaks in Colorado declined overall compared to last week, the state recorded more clusters in nursing and assisted living communities, reports the Denver Post . The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment estimated 778 outbreaks as of Wednesday, which was about 9 percent fewer than at the same time last week. Offices, restaurants, and retail environments showed the most declines, but outbreaks in assisted living communities rose by eight, reversing much of the prior week's progress when they fell by 11. Nursing communities saw four more outbreaks this week compared to 14 fewer last week. While the increases are fairly small, outbreaks in senior care communities are more concerning than in other venues because older men and women are more vulnerable to severe complications from COVID-19. The currently active spikes in long-term care communities have infected 232 residents and 472 staff, while five residents and one staffer have died.