A new Docebo poll of nearly 2,400 American and British employees found 32 percent felt unqualified to do their job, and 33 percent were worried this view was shared by their boss or colleagues, reports HR Dive . Meanwhile, 52 percent of respondents said they have a co-worker who is unqualified to perform the work they are assigned. One in three respondents said they use the Internet, searching Google or YouTube for tutorials, rather than solicit help from colleagues. One-third of Americans and 38 percent of Britons said employer-provided training falls short of their expectations, with one in three calling such training out-of-date. Close to 25 percent of workers felt under-qualification could result in their firing. In the United States, 32 percent of respondents called training critical, as did 27 percent of U.K. respondents. In addition, 36 percent of all workers, and nearly 50 percent of millennials, said they would consider quitting a job that lacked learning opportunities.

This week marks the launch of the University of Texas at Austin's (UT) Texas Aging and Longevity Center, reports KXAN . The center hopes to explore issues of social isolation, early predictors of aging, and brain aging. The center will be led by Karen Fingerman and Debra Umberson from UT's Population Research Center. It is expected that one out of every five people in Texas will be older than 65 by 2040. "Older adults today are breaking barriers by working longer and staying fit and involved in their communities," Fingerman said. "But addressing optimal aging requires an adaptive society."

A study published in Medical Gas Research details the first positron emission tomography (PET) scan-documented case of improvement in brain metabolism in Alzheimer's in a person treated with hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT), reports ScienceDaily . The individual was a 58-year-old woman who had experienced five years of cognitive decline, which began accelerating rapidly. Single photon emission computed tomography suggested Alzheimer's, which was verified via 18Fluorodeoxyglucose (18FDG) PET brain imaging. The subject was administered 40 HBOT treatments, and by the 21st session was noting increased energy and activity levels, better mood, and ability to perform daily living activities and work crossword puzzles. After 40 sessions, she reported greater memory and concentration, sleep, conversation, appetite, ability to use the computer, more good days than bad days, resolved anxiety, and less disorientation and frustration. Tremor, deep knee bend, tandem gain, and motor speed also showed improvement. Repeated 18FDG PET imaging over one month after HBOT demonstrated a global 6.5 percent to 38 percent improvement in brain metabolism.

Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) has asked U.S. Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie to investigate possible connections between post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and dementia, with potential ramifications for veterans' disability benefits, reports Texas Public Radio . PTSD is a service-connected condition, so veterans with the disorder can demand compensation from the VA. Castro noted that veterans groups in Congressional District 21 had "expressed concern that the Department of Veterans Affairs does not recognize dementia developed later in life as being a secondary condition of service-connected PTSD." In light of this, the congressman has written to Wilkie, requesting that he launch an evaluation of the VA's case records and weigh in on the issue. According to the VA, PTSD affects 11 percent to 20 percent of post-9/11 veterans and 12 percent of Gulf War veterans in a given year. "We don't know how many, then, may be affected by Alzheimer's and dementia, but it's something that we need to find out. So I'm going to keep pressing this issue," Castro emphasized.

A study published in Pharmacology Research & Perspectives found potential overprescribing of antidepressant medications occurred in nearly 25 percent of seniors living in Olmsted County, Minn., from 2005 to 2012, reports Medical Xpress . Overprescribing was most likely among nursing community residents, persons with higher number of comorbid medical conditions, outpatients, those taking more concomitant medications and making greater use of acute care services, and people receiving prescriptions via phone, email, or Web portal. "Our results, in agreement with others, suggest that the potential overprescribing of antidepressants may occur more often in seniors who have a higher degree of clinical complexity or severity," said the Mayo Clinic's William Bobo. "This is important to consider because these individuals may be at especially high risk for clinically significant depression, and clinicians may be left with relatively little time to discuss the individual concerns that may prompt the issuing of an antidepressant prescription. This is something that we would like to look into in future studies."

A senior official at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said the Trump administration has requested a list of programs that could be affected if the current government shutdown persists, reports CNBC . Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney asked for the list to include programs that would be impacted if the shutdown continued into March and April. The OMB official stated that "prudent management means planning and preparing for events without known end-dates. As OMB continues to manage this partial lapse in appropriations, unfunded agencies are being asked to continue to share with OMB an ongoing list of programs that could be impacted within the coming weeks."

The older U.S. population is expected to grow more culturally and racially diverse over time, with forecasts projecting the number of black older Americans will nearly triple from 2015 to 2060 and the number of Hispanic older adults will more than quintuple, while the white populace will less than double its headcount, reports WOTV . This growth is attributed to higher birth rates and to immigration among racial and ethnic minority populations. For example, approximately 15 percent of people 65 and older lived in a home where a language other than English was spoken in 2014. These trends have significant ramifications for meeting diverse personal and family caregiver preferences, delivering services with cultural sensitivity, and making the paid healthcare workforce skilled in cultural competence.

A Swedish study published in Gait & Posture suggests older women with thinning bones may have a steadier stride and a reduced risk of falls when they practice balance training and thinking tasks simultaneously, reports Reuters Health . The researchers tested the impact of dual-task balance training, such as walking on uneven services while doing math problems. The 95 female participants had osteoporosis and a fear of falling or a history of falls. Participants were assigned to either perform dual-task balance training three times weekly for 12 weeks, or to maintain their usual physical regimen. At the study's conclusion, those who practiced dual-task balance training could walk faster than the controls, and they showed distinct improvement in the rhythm of their walking gait, with less time between steps. David Conradsson with the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm says the results "support the notion of the role of cognitively demanding balance training for the maintenance of safe and efficient gait in older women with osteoporosis."

A study published in Science Advances suggests an enzyme emitted by the Porphyromonas gingivalis (P. gingivalis) bacteria called gingipains is the "main cause of Alzheimer's disease," reports University of California Professor Steve Dominy in Newsweek . The investigators compared the brain tissue of persons with and without Alzheimer's, determining that 96 percent of 53 individuals with the disease had RgpB, or a form of the gingipains enzyme known as arginine-gingipain. Meanwhile, 91 percent of 54 persons had Kgp, or lysine-gingipain, and these were detected in significantly bigger concentrations than the control samples. The gene associated with P. gingivalis also was present in the brain tissue of three people with Alzheimer's and six healthy controls, via DNA testing. In addition, analysis of cerebrospinal fluid and saliva of 10 persons believed to have Alzheimer's turned up the P. gingivalis gene hmuY in seven participants, and P. gingivalis itself in all. In addition, mice dosed with gingipains exhibited higher levels of amyloid beta and greater neuronal damage. This neurodegeneration halted when the mice were treated with a drug blocking the enzymes. The researchers are hopeful that a drug that inhibits the spread of P. gingivalis in the brain could forestall the symptoms of Alzheimer's.

A study published in Brain suggests the memory of people with Alzheimer's disease (AD) could be restored, reports United Press International . The researchers were able to temporarily reverse epigenetic factors in mice that cause memory loss during the disease's late progression. "We found that in Alzheimer's disease, many subunits of glutamate receptors in the frontal cortex are downregulated, disrupting the excitatory signals, which impairs working memory," says University of Buffalo Professor Zhen Yan. Mice with Alzheimer's received three doses of compounds designed to inhibit the enzyme that controls repressive histone modification. "Our study not only reveals the correlation between epigenetic changes and AD, we also found we can correct the cognitive dysfunction by targeting the epigenetic enzymes to restore glutamate receptors," Yan notes. The memory reversal reportedly persisted for a week, and now the team plans to synthesize a compound that more effectively penetrates the brain and lasts longer. "If many of the dysregulated genes in AD are normalized by targeting specific epigenetic enzymes, it will be possible to restore cognitive function and behavior," Yan says.