The Community Services Department of Independence, Ohio, has initiated an "Indy Pen Pals" program to connect seniors and younger residents during the quarantine, reports Cleveland.com . The city is encouraging residents of all ages to write a card or letter to a senior, which may be store-bought or handmade. Residents can write to specific seniors in the community, as well as author a generic letter that could be sent to any program participant. The Community Services Department explained that the letter should be placed in an unsealed, stamped envelope with the writer's name and return address. These letters can be deposited into the mailbox outside of the Civic Center, after which Community Services staff will match the letters with seniors and mail them out. According to Independence Mayor Greg Kurtz, the program aims to nurture intergenerational friendships and communication channels that are "beneficial to everyone who participates, particularly now when many people are staying home and practicing social distancing."

A study published in the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences found a possible association between the increased risk among people with dementia and high rates of new coronavirus infections in nursing communities, reports WebMD . The APOE e4e4 gene variant is known to boost the risk of Alzheimer's disease as well as heart disease, and an analysis of roughly 382,000 people of European ancestry found the variant in about 2.4 percent. Meanwhile, 5.1 percent of participants who tested positive for COVID-19 had the variant as well, which suggests that carriers are at twice the risk of coronavirus infection. "This is an exciting result because we might now be able to pinpoint how this faulty gene causes vulnerability to COVID-19," said University of Connecticut Professor Chia-Ling Kuo. "This could lead to new ideas for treatments." Moreover, people with dementia are three times more likely to get severe COVID-19, but they are not within the populations advised to protect against infection or shelter in place. "This study suggests that this high risk may not simply be due to the effects of dementia, advancing age or frailty, or exposure to the virus in care homes," said University of Exeter Professor David Melzer. "The effect could be partly due to this underlying genetic change, which puts them at risk for both COVID-19 and dementia."

The World Health Organization (WHO) has launched a digital healthcare tool to help health and social workers improve care for senior citizens, reports Medical Plastics News . The WHO ICOPE Handbook App delivers guidance for conditions that include mobility limitations, malnutrition, vision and hearing loss, cognitive decline, depression, and social care and support. The app is required because the global population is rapidly aging, with one in five people projected to be over 60 by 2050. "Such innovation will enable older people to continue doing the things they value and prevent them from social isolation and care dependency," explained WHO's Islene Araujo de Carvalho. "Intervening close to where older people live, with active participation of the community and older persons themselves, is essential for a personalized care plan." The app is designed to enable health and social workers to better address the older population's various necessities.

New York-based flutist and journalist Eugenia Zuckerman is using her musical talent to try to comfort people with Alzheimer's disease and other kinds of dementia during the coronavirus crisis by performing free virtual concerts, reports Boston 25 News . "Music can make people feel so much better and feel like they can go on," she said. Zuckerman, a Massachusetts native, has Alzheimer's, and her most recent concert was at Massachusetts General Hospital for their Dementia Care Collaborative. She hopes that hearing her music can help others in isolation cope with loneliness. "I believe it with my heart and soul it is everything to me, it is a language of its own," Zuckerman said.

University of Alberta (U of A) scientists are developing an app to help healthcare providers assess and manage pain in people with dementia and other neurodegenerative conditions, reports Medical Xpress . The app was assessed in a study published in JMIR mHealth and uHealth . The tool provides a digital pen-and-paper observational checklist to help medical staff evaluate pain in those they care for. "Our work is to develop an application for nurses to use, as well as a back-end repository that stores and manages this data safely," said U of A's Eleni Stroulia. The trial compared the digital app on a tablet with conventional pen-and-paper evaluation, and nurses favored the app over the traditional method when dealing with patients, and also noted that it helped them feel less stressed and burned out. Stroulia said the app will enable healthcare workers to more quickly see whether pain management strategies are working with individuals. "When we have this kind of data, we can build models to understand the impact of different interventions," she explained. "This is what can change policy and care in the long term — evidence-based policy that changes the state of how we practice medicine."

A study presented at Digestive Disease Week indicates that aspirin nearly doubles the risk for serious upper gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding in older adults and can escalate with age, smoking, chronic kidney disease, and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), reports Healio . Massachusetts General Cancer Center researchers analyzed data on 19,114 participants in the Aspree aspirin primary prevention trial, 9,525 of whom were randomly assigned to receive aspirin while 9,589 received placebo. Of the 264 reported serious GI bleeding incidents, 137 were upper GI events and 127 were lower GI events. Age, smoking, chronic kidney disease, and NSAID use were risk factors for upper GI bleeding while age, smoking, and hypertension were risk factors for lower GI bleeding. No linkage between proton pump inhibitor use and reduced bleeding events was observed. The absolute, five-year serious upper GI bleeding risk was 0.2 percent for people aged 70 and 0.4 percent if they were taking aspirin, and up to 5.5 percent for those aged 80 on aspirin with significant risk factors. "This study . . . provides more accurate estimates of the absolute risk of bleeding among individuals who initiate aspirin at an older age," said the Massachusetts General Cancer Center's Andrew T. Chan. "This will be useful for further studies to appropriately weigh the risks and benefits of low dose aspirin treatment."

An interdisciplinary research study of the University of Barcelona published in Biomolecules identified two marine molecules as potential candidate therapies for Alzheimer's disease, reports EurekAlert . Meridianine and lignarenone B can modify the activity of GSK3B, a protein linked to several neurodegenerative diseases. "GSK3B has always been an appreciated molecule in the treatment for Alzheimer's disease," said Albert Giralt with the Network Center for Biomedical Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases. "However, clinical trials with all potential inhibitors caused adverse effects, which were a disappointment." The team employed biocomputing and molecular dynamic simulation to analyze the potential of a group of marine molecular families to inhibit GSK3B activity. In vitro experimental validation on the inhibiting ability of these molecules was then conducted using mice neuron cultures, which demonstrated that both marine compounds do not induce neurotoxic effects while also promoting structural neuronal plasticity. "These induce the growth of the neuronal tree, an aspect of great interest in Alzheimer's disease, where atrophy and dysfunction play a more relevant role in the appearance of symptoms than in neuronal death," said Giralt. The next step will involve assessing treatment with these drugs to see if they improve symptomatology in mice models with Alzheimer's, hopefully followed by clinical studies.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced on Thursday that assisted living and intermediate care communities will allow outdoor visitations starting June 8, reports WLWT . He said this decision was based on the effect that prolonged isolation has on individuals' quality of life; visitation requests from loved ones and residents; and consultation with proponents and providers. This new allowance is not a mandate, so the decision to allow outdoor visits will be up to individual communities. Various organizations, including the Academy for Senior Health Sciences, LeadingAge Ohio, Assisted Living Ohio, and the Ohio Health Care Association, contributed to the decision's development.

Rising Mountains and other assisted living communities in Montana are offering musical performances to lift the spirits of quarantined residents during the pandemic, reports the Bozeman Daily Chronicle . "Music therapy is not a well-known profession, at least in the state of Montana," says certified music therapist Kirsten Wells, who has performed on guitar for residents while maintaining social distancing. She notes that "some people that can't talk with end-stage dementia can still sing with me. When they hear that song that they know from their younger years, they'll still join in signing with me and the smiles and the laughs and the engagement that you get in those times is worth it." Music therapy can be conducted either in small group sessions or in individual meetings, when Wells engages with clients on a personal level and invites those who may not have verbal abilities to play an instrument or accompany her with movement. For clients with less deteriorated cognition, she will use the songs as a conversation starter, with the goal of improving their mood or creating social engagement. 'What I look for when I interact with them is some kind of change, some kind of positive reaction of improvement," Wells says. "So, even if I just see a twinkle in their eye or that little smile, that's something I might not have gotten without adding music."

Seventy-eight percent of employed Americans say they would not consider a job change during the coronavirus pandemic as long as they can continue to work at their current job, according to a survey of 993 employees cited by GlobeNewswire and cited by Yoh, a part of Day & Zimmermann. Almost three-quarters of employed Americans (69 percent) say they don't think they would be able to find a new job during the pandemic. Among all age groups, those 35 to 54 are most likely to say they don't think they would be able to find a new job during the pandemic (72 percent). Those 18-24 (67 percent) and 55+ (65 percent) are somewhat more optimistic. Sixty-nine percent of those 44 and younger versus 55 percent of those 45 and older would consider changing jobs during the crisis if they felt their current company was not doing enough to protect their employees.