Verywell Health reports that telehealth can help manage different aspects of Alzheimer's disease care, and its use generally involves the person who has the disorder, their caregiver, and their healthcare professional. For example, memory clinics may offer cognitive rehabilitation via telehealth, and although this therapy cannot reverse the disease, it can help manage the effects and reduce symptoms like agitation and depression. Meanwhile, disease surveillance allows monitoring of certain aspects of Alzheimer's progression with digital tools that measure signs of movement, activity, and cognition. In addition, cognitive functions and mood can be assessed with methods such as medical examination and standardized questionnaires. This includes the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, which healthcare providers can often conduct via telehealth. Moreover, providers may be able to determine whether a patient can be treated without an in-person visit or might recommend in-person follow-up testing, physical examination, or treatment after assessing the situation through a preliminary telehealth visit. Telehealth also can be a tool for providing caregiver support, in the form of guidance, instruction, and advice from experienced professionals.

CBS Detroit reports that the Henry Ford Village senior community in Dearborn, Mich., runs a high-tech TV studio called Community TV, with seniors producing content for residents. "We have a sports program called 'The Sports Guys,' which features a round table of residents discussing our local sports teams. We also cover the many concerts and lectures that go on here," says Community TV coordinator Ann Diaz-Perry. She adds that the studio produces six monthly and weekly shows run solely by residents, who create, host, and produce each full production. Diaz-Perry helps train volunteers to use the equipment and develop TV programs. Resident Chuck Hiller serves as an on-air host and cameraman. "We're focused on one thing, and that's doing the best show possible," he says.

Proposed legislation is making its way through both the Florida House and Senate that would create a more uniform standard of dementia training for staffers at long-term care communities, Bay News 9 in Tampa reports. Senate Bill 634 and House Bill 309 aim to create a training standard for both long-term care and home health care workers on how to handle patients with dementia, including Alzheimer's Disease. Melissa Wos has been one of the most vocal advocates after experiencing firsthand how difficult it was finding care for her mother, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's eight years ago. The disease has progressed to the point where the 82-year-old requires around-the-clock care.

The La Jolla Community Center (LJCC) in California is enrolling seniors in a second tech training course following a successful inaugural class, reports the La Jolla Light . The first free "iPad & iPhone Basics" Zoom class is about to close its 10th and last week. Instructor Deborah Miller teaches accessibility features that participants find helpful, like making the screen brighter or text bigger, or having the phone announce calls. Miller incorporates fun topics, such as how to add balloons and confetti to text messages, and can meet with students one on one for more extensive help or a refresher of what was previously covered. She says she believes "it's fun to explain how to operate a device to seniors and witness their 'a-ha' moment," adding that simple instruction allows them to "gain confidence." The next 10-week session of the course begins on April 19.

Senior advocate and author Elizabeth White writes in MarketWatch that a recent study by ProPublica and the Urban Institute found that as up to half of the 40 million working adults over 50 will eventually lose their jobs, and only 10 percent will ever find replacement jobs earning pay commensurate with their previous occupations. She recalls BlackRock CEO Larry Fink urging companies to "embrace a greater responsibility to help workers navigate retirement, lending their capacity for innovation to solve this immense global challenge." White argues that "a big part of helping 'workers navigate retirement' is addressing age bias in the workplace. Workplace age discrimination, now compounded by the health risks of COVID-19, is forcing millions of older Americans out of their jobs into early involuntary retirement — an involuntary retirement marked by poverty." She envisions BlackRock leading a push to "engage corporations directly about their plus-50 strategies and inquire about their progress investing in and leveraging talent across generations, especially measures to attract and retain older workers." A 2020 AARP survey of some 6,000 employers found only 47 percent actually monitor age as a diversity factor. White suggests these companies should be recognized and given "a bigger megaphone."

President Biden said Tuesday that eligibility for COVID-19 vaccination should apply to all American adults by April 19, beating the previous target date of May 1, according to the Wall Street Journal . He also said the pace of vaccinations has increased from approximately 1 million doses per day at the start of his term to 3.1 million doses daily, on average. With more than 150 million shots delivered to Americans since he took office, Biden plans to have 200 million doses administered by the end of his administration's first 100 days. Although more populations are getting protected against coronavirus — including high-risk individuals — the president warned against complacency. "The virus is spreading because we have too many people who've seen the end in sight, think we're at the finish line already," he cautioned. "We're still in a life and death race against this virus." Public health experts say new, highly contagious COVID variants are emerging.

A study in Science Advances demonstrated how gene therapy might help correct damage caused by dementia and glaucoma, reports Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News . Earlier research found brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and its receptor tropomyosin receptor kinase B (TrkB) held promise for enhancing axonal function in damaged nerve cells. The researchers determined that axonal transport between the eye and brain was impaired in an animal model of glaucoma, while a decline in electrical activity in the retina in response to light suggested that vision was also affected. The team used a viral vector system to deliver TrkB and BDNF to the retina of glaucoma model rats, which restored axonal transport between the retina and the brain and improved electrical response to light. The same therapy also restored axonal transport between the eye and brain in mice engineered to model the accumulation of tau protein tangles in the brain, indicating possible improvement in short-term memory. "Given the recent correlation between Alzheimer's pathology in the brain and retina, this approach shows promise as an overall strategy to target intrinsic neuronal mechanisms to improve neuronal repair while overcoming several problems relating to ligand deficiency and receptor down-regulation and dysfunction that may be relevant to multiple neurodegenerative diseases," the team concluded.

The Hill reports that UsAgainstAlzheimer's has launched a tool that can assess individuals and connect them with health resources. The group's BrainGuide platform will let users take a memory questionnaire to check for signs of Alzheimer's, then connect them with health and educational resources based on the results. BrainGuide General Manager Brooks Kenny said the platform can provide relevant information to people attempting to improve their brain health, worried about their memory, seeking additional information following diagnosis, or caring for someone with the disease. He noted that UsAgainstAlzheimer's did not require regulatory approval since BrainGuide is not formally diagnosing patients.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 80.8 percent of Kansans 65 and older have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 56.6 percent have been fully vaccinated, reports the Wichita Eagle . These numbers rank Kansas in 10th place and 24th place among the 50 states, respectively. "Kansas is one of 13 states leading on vaccinating our seniors," tweeted Gov. Laura Kelly. "This is how we get Kansans back to work, our kids back to school — and our state back to normal." The Kelly administration's vaccine rollout prioritized seniors to be immunized first, and last week the Kansas Department of Health and Environment opened vaccine eligibility to all state residents and employees 16 and older.

The latest data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the state of New York is trailing the rest of the nation in vaccinating people over age 65 against COVID-19, reports the New York Post . New York ranks 44th on that basis. Whereas 73 percent of Americans over 65 have now received at least one dose across the country, only 67 percent of senior New Yorkers have so far. Meanwhile, the state ranks ninth in terms of immunizing residents ages 18 to 65, and 24th for vaccinating its total adult population. "The disparity suggests that New York's vaccination policies and procedures are giving younger people an advantage relative to other states," said Bill Hammond at Empire Center. The think tank suspects the Cuomo administration's prioritization of essential workers for shots in December created this disparity. "This may relate to the number of younger New Yorkers who were competing for limited slots at any given time, and the process for finding and scheduling an appointment, which gives an edge to the computer-savvy," Hammond said.