Starting Oct. 5, the Alzheimer's Foundation of America (AFA) is expanding the weekend schedule of its National Toll-Free Helpline (866-232-8484) from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Eastern standard time, reports FOX 47 News . The seven-days-a-week helpline is staffed by licensed social workers with dementia care training, who receive calls from family and professional caregivers, as well as from individuals living with Alzheimer's and other dementia-related ailments. AFA's personnel answer questions, offer tips and strategies, and provide referrals to local services in the caller's area through the helpline, regardless of where they reside in the United States. "As the number of people with Alzheimer's continues to grow, so too does the number of caregivers who need support," said AFA Chief Executive Charles J. Fuschillo Jr. "Expanding our helpline hours is another way we can help families affected by Alzheimer's in their time of need."

Technology is improving the quality of life for older adults at risk of social isolation and loneliness, reports The Oklahoman . "Unless they're living in a senior community they may have no interaction at all on a daily basis," noted LifePod CEO Stuart Patterson, whose company provides smart-speaker technology that engages with users, so caregivers can remotely watch and support seniors. LifePod utilizes a proactive voice and does not require activation by a command. A family member or caregiver instead encodes LifePod with programmed routines, schedules, and dialogue. The device can awaken a person with a friendly greeting, and offer reminders to take medications or perform other activities. Caregivers are sent text alerts to confirm what their charges have been doing. A recent study from the University of California, San Diego's Design Lab determined that seniors are often frustrated with new technology, with design obstacles and physical hindrances also noted. "You have to introduce the innovation and show them how to use it, but also give them the meaning and the purpose," said Davis Park with the Front Porch senior living provider. "If you provide that, they will light up and get excited about the technology. Curiosity is key."

President Trump signed an executive order calling for the modernization of Medicare by boosting access to telehealth and innovative therapies, as opposed to Democrats' Medicare for All proposal, reports Roll Call . Domestic Policy Council Director Joe Grogan insisted that "the President . . . is delivering on his promise to lower costs, increase options, improve quality, and give persons control over their health decisions." The order stipulates the inclusion of telehealth in mandates that insurance plans have an adequate number of doctors and other providers, and aims to bolster options for innovative therapies that are usually excluded from Medicare's existing coverage and payment schemes. Easing the regulatory burden for providers is highlighted by Trump's order, and U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma noted prior authorization is a major area of emphasis. The directive also will provide guidance to permit other types of clinicians, like nurse practitioners and physician assistants, to practice at the top of their licenses, mitigating supervision requirements for physicians. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said this measure should benefit rural practices, in particular, with a dearth of providers. He will propose a regulation to broaden plan diversity and affordability, while innovative plan structures — such as including options for medical savings accounts and proposing a payment pilot to help beneficiaries save more via supplemental incentives — will be encouraged.

The U.S. National Institute on Aging has awarded a nearly $4 million grant to Drexel University Professor Laura N. Gitlin and the University of California's Helen Kales to study the impact of the online WeCareAdvisor platform on caregivers of people with dementia, reports Drexel Now . WeCareAdvisor offers users education about dementia, daily tips for managing stress, and a systematic scheme for describing, investigating, creating, and evaluating strategies. "Family caregivers are rarely informed about behavioral and psychological symptoms nor do they have opportunities to learn about specific proven nonpharmacological strategies that can prevent, reduce and/or manage these symptoms," Gitlin noted. She and Kales, along with Johns Hopkins University Professor Constantine George Lyketsos, developed WeCareAdvisor to tailor caregivers' strategies to match the presentation of behavioral symptoms of the individual with dementia they are responsible for. The study will assess the platform's ability to reduce behavioral symptoms and caregiver distress and confidence managing behavioral symptoms, as well as ascertain the types of prompts caregivers find most helpful to successfully use the tool.

An Oklahoma City program called Valir Pace helps at-risk seniors access healthcare amid soaring costs, reports KFOR . Valir Pace uses funds typically provided to Medicare, but operates more efficiently. The expense also is much lower than what Medicare would normally cover for a senior to live in a nursing community. "Twenty-six percent is the average hospitalization rate that a Medicare beneficiary would experience," said Valir Place Vice President Brandy Baily. "The hospitalization rate for participants that are engaged in the Valir Pace program is 3 percent." Seniors who qualify for nursing community assistance under Medicare are frequently eligible for Valir Pace programs.

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A pilot study published in the American Journal of Alzheimer's Disease & Other Dementias detailed the first cluster, randomized controlled trial of the effects of chair yoga on older adults with moderate to severe dementia who cannot participate in regular exercise or standing yoga, reports ScienceDaily . Participants in three groups attended 45-minute sessions of chair yoga, chair-based exercise, or music therapy twice weekly for 12 weeks. According to the researchers, over 97 percent of participants fully engaged in each session. The chair yoga group's quality of life improved significantly compared to the music intervention group. Both the chair yoga and chair-exercise cohorts improved over time, while the music intervention group experienced a decline. Moreover, both the chair yoga and chair-based exercise groups exhibited lower depression across three time points in comparison with the music intervention group. "We think that the physical poses we used in the chair yoga and chair-based exercise groups were an important factor in improving quality of life for the participants in our study," said Florida Atlantic University Professor Juyoung Park. No significant between-group differences in anxiety was observed at any time point, or differences in change in depression and anxiety.

The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded the Indiana University (IU) School of Medicine a five-year, $36 million grant to create a novel drug discovery center to seek new Alzheimer's treatments in partnership with Purdue University's Institute for Drug Discovery, reports the Indianapolis Star . This marks a shift in drug development focus, in the wake of the pharmaceutical industry's failure to create effective drugs. The hope is that researchers will share their discoveries with others in the field to accelerate the transition from laboratory research to clinical trials. "Through these centers, NIH will expand the use of open-science and open-source principles to de-risk novel drug targets with the goal of facilitating the development of new treatments for Alzheimer's," pledged NIH Director Francis S. Collins. Former Eli Lilly researcher Alan Palkowitz will head the IU center, and he said every setback fuels the drive to continue research. "Given the complexity of the disease and past results, we need to urgently explore new ideas," he stressed. Purdue Institute Director Zhong-Yin Zhang noted his team will offer drug discovery expertise, and the organization currently has 73 compounds in the pipeline. Palkowitz added that the IU center will share its findings with both academic and pharmaceutical industry players, and will try to team with a pharmaceutical company to convert any compound of interest into an effective medication.

A study in Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics found seniors with inflammatory bowel disease are at an elevated risk for adverse events (AEs) as they start thiopurine treatment, reports Medical Xpress . The researchers investigated two cohorts who started thiopurine use between 18 and 50, and who started at more than 60 years old. Analysis showed 43.4 percent of subjects in the over-60 group had at least one AE, versus 29.7 percent in the control group. The senior cohort also had higher rates of myelotoxicity, digestive intolerance, and hepatotoxicity, as well as higher incidence of infections and neoplasms. The median duration of therapy was 13 months in the older group compared to 32 months among the controls, and thiopurines were halted due to AEs other than infections and neoplasms occurring more often in the older cohort. Female gender also was an independent risk factor for most AEs. "Our findings . . . suggest that dosing guidelines should recommend consideration of lower starting doses or close monitoring of drug metabolites in senior and female populations," the researchers noted.

A study in Alzheimer's & Dementia comparing walking patterns in people with two types of dementia considered how walking might factor into telling the disorders apart, reports Medical News Today . The researchers suggested the unique gait impairments typical of Alzheimer's and Lewy body dementia may mirror the specific damage affecting cognition and the brain. Corroboration of these findings could glean insights into using walking patterns for diagnosing different types of dementia more affordably. "A more accurate diagnosis means that we know that people are getting the right treatment, care, and management for the dementia they have," said Newcastle University's Ríona McArdle. Alzheimer's initial point of damage is the hippocampal region, where memory forms. In Lewy body dementia, the damage attacks areas that govern movement and certain aspects of memory. Analysis revealed that participants with Alzheimer's seldom varied their gait, while those with Lewy body dementia often varied the amount of time it took them to take a step or the length of their steps. The researchers claimed these observations provide "early evidence" of unique gait signatures for mild Alzheimer's and Lewy body dementia, possibly caused by disease-specific effects on cognition.