President Trump announced this week that Vice President Mike Pence would take over the administration's response to the coronavirus, which has now spread to more than 80,000 people around the globe and sparked a dramatic sell-off on Wall Street, reports Bloomberg . Trump initially appointed Health and Human Services Secretary (HHS) Alex Azar to lead the federal government's response. Pence said yesterday at a meeting on the virus at HHS headquarters, "The President has every confidence in the secretary, as I do. The President wanted to make it clear to the American people that we're going to bring a whole-of-government approach to this." Pence has also Deborah Birx, the U.S. State Department's top AIDS official, to join his team. Birx was nominated by former President Obama six years ago as the U.S. global AIDS coordinator responsible for overseeing humanitarian aid programs combating the epidemic. Additionally, she served as head of the global HIV/AIDS division at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Pence and Azar announced earlier Thursday that U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams, Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow, and Treasury Department Secretary Steven Mnuchin would join the coronavirus task force.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York estimated that the total debt burden for Americans older than 70 soared 543 percent from 1999 through 2019 to $1.1 trillion, reports CNBC . A 2018 study by the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) concluded that seniors have been "disproportionately harmed" by a worsening "modest social safety net." A separate report by the Employee Benefit Research Institute found more seniors risk running short of money in retirement due to their increased likelihood of debt. Households headed by someone older than 75 with debt payments exceeding 40 percent of their income grew more than 23 percent from 2007 to 2016. Employers' preference for high-deductible health plans and migration from pension plans to 401(k) plans has forced Americans to assume more individual responsibility for their finances. The New York Fed said student loan debt for 65-year-olds increased 886 percent per person between 2003 and 2015, while the SSRN study found "exponential" growth among older Americans filing for bankruptcy, due to factors like increasing need for long-term care and the problems older workers have finding new jobs. Some financial advisers said having debt in retirement is not always a negative, and racing to settle debts may not always be the wisest strategy.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has established a Future of Work task force to ensure the agency has sufficient people and skills to fulfill its mission through 2030 as retirements ripple across the federal workforce, reports the Federal News Network . The CDC's leadership management and development school helps new supervisors nurture core leadership skills within their first year of work. "What we need to make sure is that they understand all the rules of the road so that they can't claim ignorance — that they're empowered and knowledgeable of what those skills are and that they have sources and connections with other managers who may be struggling through the same things they're learning," said the CDC's Dia Taylor. She added that the agency is considering methods for identifying non-managerial career paths for mid-level workers with subject matter expertise, who lack the natural talent to manage other employees. "We'll work to try to identify opportunities for them that are technical in nature or in-line with their background and capabilities, to make sure that they are able to continue to contribute positively to the mission of the agency," Taylor stated. "And when all else fails, we will help to release you to your destiny. If that destiny is outside of our agency, then that's fine, but the one thing we recognize is that we have to help them become better."

Virtual reality (VR) technology is being used to improve seniors' lives worldwide by mitigating loneliness, enhancing psychological health, and remotely transporting them to exotic destinations from the comfort of their homes, reports Forbes . Tokyo researcher Kenta Toshima employs VR to help nursing home residents visit both new and old locales via made-to-order VR experiences recorded on a high-resolution 360-degree camera. "The VR experience makes residents feel like they are out of the nursing home and can help ease their anxiety and loneliness," he said. Multiple residents can enjoy the VR experience concurrently, helping to foster a sense of community. Another application lets prospective residents virtually tour their future retirement home before construction is complete. "The use of VR is mitigating anxiety because seniors are able to get an authentic and emotional feel for the atmosphere that typical renderings and two-dimensional technology can't offer," said Adell Cuminale with Cloverwood Senior Living, which is using VR so retirees can immerse themselves in the forthcoming Terraces at Cloverwood development. VR also is proving popular among seniors as a tool for visiting cherished places where they lived or traveled to in the past, as well as locations they wish to check off their "bucket list." This application is especially therapeutic for seniors with cognition, dementia, or other issues.

A study in Experimental Biology and Medicine has uncovered a connection between poor dental health and dementia, reports Yahoo! Finance . The researchers analyzed more than 200,000 new dementia cases registered in the National Insurance Database for the population of Taiwan. More women than men suffered from dementia, which appeared to stem from greater representation in the aging populace. Records from the prior decade indicated that dental procedures that quickly restored homeostasis reduced dementia risk, while a history of chronic dental problems raised it. "Good dental care and perhaps simple daily dental hygiene with regular brushing and rinsing with an antibacterial mouthwash may be a productive intervention, especially among populations already having increasing difficulty performing their own routine daily care," said the University of North Texas Health Science Center's J.L. Caffrey. "Second, the impressive analytical power of this broad database strongly suggests that a coalition is needed among patients, the medical/dental establishment, and major cloud-based enterprises to create an even better worldwide resource database to allow the research community to efficiently examine a wide spectrum of current and future public health issues with a never-before-realized confidence and precision."

A study in JAMA Network Open suggests that people who are widowed late in life may be at a higher risk for Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia and cognitive decline, reports United Press International . The researchers analyzed 257 married, widowed, and unmarried adults and found that widowed participants "demonstrated worsening cognitive performance" and elevated beta-amyloid protein levels. One hundred fifty-three participants were women, and the mean age was about 74. Overall, 145 subjects were married, and 35 were widowed. No differences between married and unmarried participants were seen in terms of worsening cognitive performance or beta-amyloid levels. "We would recommend for widows what we know to be beneficial overall for older adults: exercise, social engagement, cognitively stimulating activities, a healthy diet, managing stress levels, attending to mental health and reducing cardiovascular risk factors," said Brigham and Women's Hospital's Nancy J. Donovan. She also emphasized the importance of learning which biological processes and other variables underpin the link between widowhood and cognitive decline.

A 12-week study in Nutrients found older adults on a diet designed to help reduce high blood pressure showed improvements that went beyond those expected by South Dakota State University (SDSU) researchers, reports Medical Xpress . The 36 adults, age 65 or older, who completed the study lost an average of 6 percent of total body weight and maintained their muscle strength. Moreover, "the dietary changes actually helped improve their metabolic health," said SDSU Professor Cydne Perry. This lowered their risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and fatty liver disease. During the study, Perry said participants "consumed all of the meals provided by the research personnel and none that we did not provide," using the controlled feeding methodology described as "the gold standard for clinical nutritional research in humans." The researchers prepared meals consisting of grains, dairy, protein, fruits, and vegetables, containing 1,800 daily calories. Participants also consumed 126 grams of meat a day, evenly distributed among breakfast, lunch, and dinner, along with 391 milligrams of daily cholesterol intake. Average blood pressure in the group declined from 133/76 mmHg to 120/70 mmHg, eliminating blood pressure as a risk factor.

A study in the Journal of General Internal Medicine sheds light on moral distress among physicians caring for older adults, reports ScienceDaily . Moral distress is the sense that one's professional integrity has been compromised, because the doctor feels held back from acting on deeply held beliefs. The researchers estimated that 42 percent of doctors caring for older adults who need a surrogate decision-maker experienced moral distress. When working with surrogate decision-makers like family members of the people in their care, physicians often confront ethical dilemmas — like whether to continue life support or not — that may cause moral distress with their potential negative consequences. The researchers determined that moral distress occurred more frequently among male doctors, interns, or other junior-level physicians. The condition also was common when the patient was older, or when decisions were required about life-sustaining treatments. Meanwhile, physicians were less likely to experience moral distress when caring for nursing home residents, or when the physician or family members had discussed care preferences with the person before they were unable to make their own decisions. Moral distress also was less frequent when the surrogate decision-maker felt emotionally supported by the physician and other clinicians, and when doctor and surrogate decision-maker agreed on the course of treatment.

Rutigliano Marketing founder Karina Tama-Rutigliano recommends in Forbes that senior communities consider who today's baby boomers are when designing their marketing strategy. They should take into account where boomers seek information and what they want to know once they find an assisted living community's website. "It is essential to define the audience before you start mapping a marketing plan," Tama-Rutigliano writes. "In the case of senior living, the 'persona' leads come from different sources, such as the senior, the adult child (often the daughter), the physician, the hospital, etc." The author also suggests that assisted living providers learn the online habits of baby boomers, which include increased smartphone ownership and possession of social media accounts. "Younger baby boomers are also looking for assisted living communities for their parents, and older Gen Xers are exploring options for their parents," Tama-Rutigliano points out. She recommends that communities make it easy for different generations to find their website and get answers to questions quickly and easily. To this end, the site should load fast and boast engaging landing pages.

University of Iowa Professor Thorsten Rudroff is seeking people between the ages of 50 and 80 to participate in a two-year study to characterize the effects of medical marijuana on older adults who are already at an elevated risk of falling, reports KCRG . Researchers will compare medical marijuana smokers to non-smokers in terms of motor functions, for example, to see how they walk. Rudroff says people "don't know how to use medical cannabis. There are no guidelines, no recommendations out there. We want to find out what is the best and safest product." Rudroff suggests people use more cannabidiol (CBD) products rather than smoke medical marijuana. "We looked in one study how CBD affects the brain, and we found some really positive results," he explained. "So it is very positive that CBD has some benefits to cognition to older people."