A report from the Stanford Center on Longevity found baby boomers have higher debt, smaller savings accounts, and less home equity compared to previous generations, according to ReverseMortgageDaily . Boomers have less home equity accrual, financial wealth, and total wealth overall, while mid-boomers own the lowest amount of net worth and home equity. "Earlier cohorts enjoyed a long and steady growth in home equity, helping them to withstand the burst of the housing bubble in the late 2000s," the report states. "Boomers in their mid to late 50s were hit relatively hard by the housing market crash, with greater loss in equity." Furthermore, boomers have smaller nest eggs, with 33 percent having contributed nothing to retirement accounts in 2014. For boomers who had contributed, the median was only about $200,000. "About two-thirds of baby boomers had debt in 2014," the report reads. "Among households with non-zero debt, mid-boomers' average debt reached $120,000, much higher than that of prior generations. Holding age fixed, boomers age 55 to 60 had a higher debt burden."

"For most of the last two decades, the share of women participating in the U.S. labor force was in decline," states MarketWatch , "puzzling demographers and economists since female participation was rising in many other developed economies." That long-running decline is showing signs of reversing thanks to a strengthening economy. Labor-force participation among U.S. females aged 25 to 54 years old has increased from 73.3 percent three years ago to 75.2 percent. In that time span, their unemployment rate has dipped to its lowest level since the 1950s. A plenitude of jobs coupled with a gradual increase in wages is drawing females back into the workforce, including those at the low end of the skill spectrum.

A study published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research probed volume differences in the hippocampus (HC) in a general population sample of French older adults, comparing currently depressed individuals, persons with a previous major depressive episode (MDE), and healthy controls, reports Science Trends . Subjects 65 years and older were randomly chosen from the 15 electoral rolls of the Montpellier district between March 1999 and February 2001, and they received clinical, biological, and neuroimaging assessment. Magnetic resonance imaging determined a left posterior HC volume reduction in currently depressed participants versus controls with a manual HC measurement technique. When individuals with a history of past, but not current, MDE were compared to controls, no HC volume reduction was observed. The main result remained consistent even with slight modification of sub-group inclusion criteria. Brain volume changes due to depression in older adults may be altered by confounding factors like depression severity, antidepressant use, or cardiovascular risk associated with the metabolic syndrome. Theoretically, previously depressed individuals may have recovered in terms of brain atrophy, with such recovery possibly involving a restoration of the original basal rate of neurogenesis.

A study published in the Journal of American Geriatrics Society details successful liver transplants in older adults, reports EurekAlert . The researchers analyzed data from the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients from 2003 to 2016, which includes information about all liver donors, people on liver transplant wait lists, and those who have received transplants in the United States. The team found out of 58,598 adults who received liver transplants, 14.7 percent were older adults, of whom 78 percent were 65 to 69, 1 percent were 70 to 74, 6 percent were 75 to 79, and 1 percent were 80 or older. The number of liver transplants performed in older adults annually rose significantly, with 1,144 older adults receiving transplants in 2016 versus 263 in 2003. Lately, older adults have been doing better after transplants, with the one-year acute rejection rate in 2013-2016 determined to be 30 percent lower than it was in 2003-2006. The mortality risk was 57 percent lower than in 2003-2006. Furthermore, survival in older liver transplant recipients showed steady improvement over time.

A study from University College London (UCL) researchers published in Nature Communications found machine learning could help uncover new treatments for dementia, reports Medical Xpress . The team describes an algorithm that can automatically extract different patterns of disease progression in persons with a range of dementias, including Alzheimer's, to allow individuals to be identified that may respond best to different therapies. The Subtype and Stage Inference (SuStaIn) algorithm was applied to routine magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans from subjects with dementia. SuStaIn employs medical imaging, which lets doctors see how disease is progressing, examine at the specific sites of protein buildup within the brain, and infer which parts are degenerating. SuStaIn successfully classified three separate subtypes of Alzheimer's, which broadly correlate with those seen in postmortem brain tissue analysis, as well as several different subtypes of frontotemporal dementia. However, the researchers think this subtyping could be done on living subjects via brain scanning, very early in the disease process. "This work shows that it is possible to tease out different disease patterns — some hitherto unknown — from single MRI scans taken from persons with a range of different dementias," says UCL Professor Jonathan Schott. "As well as providing new insights into dementia, this work demonstrates the huge potential of SuStaIn to delineate disease subtypes in a range of other medical contexts."

The HABIT program at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., is designed to help older adults deal with memory loss, reports NJ.com . The 10-day program teaches a person with mild cognitive impairment and their spouse or partner ways to adjust and cope with this condition. Its centerpiece is a specialized form of memory compensation training called the Memory Support System, developed at the Mayo Clinic and based on knowledge gained from research involving people with traumatic brain injuries. The system trains people with memory problems to adopt an entirely new strategy for keeping track of appointments or tasks or information, using "procedural" memory. "Procedural memory is how to brush your teeth," says HABIT director Anne Shandera-Ochsner. "It's 'how to' memory, versus what and where." Participants work with a cognitive therapist to learn to use a specially-designed calendar that Shandera-Ochsner calls "the closest thing you can get to an old-school day planner." Participants bring the calendar with them throughout the day, which helps them keep track of appointments and tasks, and to scribble notes about conversations they have or important information they want to retain. Once the participant and their partner are trained in memory compensation, the participant is better able to keep track of important information on their own by looking it up in the calendar, instead of continually querying their partner or others.

A new review published in the Harvard Review of Psychiatry studied the effectiveness and tolerability for benzodiazepines among older adults with three conditions for which such drugs are typically prescribed — insomnia, anxiety disorders, and dementia, reports U.S. News & World Report . For insomnia treatment, 21 of 25 studies indicated improved sleep outcomes, while a single related study on anxiety observed a benefit with benzodiazepines compared to placebos. However, only one of five studies on behavioral disturbances in dementia showed improvement versus placebos. The University of Michigan's Lauren Gerlach concluded "benzodiazepine prescribing in older adults is significantly in excess of what the available evidence suggests is appropriate." Another study published in JAMA Internal Medicine found taking benzodiazepines over prolonged periods to be common among older adults, even though they are recommended for short-term use only. Gerelach noted most people are expected to take the drugs for about one to three months, but she said, "Most of the people who were staying on these medications long-term were receiving at least eight months of medication over the following year." Gerlach also warned the risks of side effects from benzodiazepines are elevated for older adults, given changes in how their bodies metabolize medications. "Despite benzodiazepines being widely prescribed to persons with behavioral disturbances in dementia, there is little evidence to show that these medications provide any benefit other than sedation," she noted.

A study published in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience suggests the common herpes virus could be the cause of at least half of the cases of Alzheimer's, reports Newsweek . University of Manchester Professor Ruth Itzhaki reviewed several studies, including three based this year on the National Health Insurance Research Database in Taiwan. Two of them investigated varicella zoster virus (VZV) and its relationship to cognitive decline, while the third focused on herpes. Itzhaki cited the third study for targeting correlations between herpes and Alzheimer's in 8,362 participants who were at least 50 years old in the year 2000, and the incidence of Alzheimer's in this cohort was compared with 25,086 subjects matching their age and gender who were herpes-free. Those infected with HSV and VZV were more likely to develop senile dementia, but Itzhaki noted antiviral treatments appeared to spur a "dramatic decrease" in the number of subjects who later developed dementia. Slightly more than 5 percent of the group that took anti-herpes medication developed dementia in the following decade, versus more than 28 percent of those who did not take the medication. "Viral DNA is located very specifically within plaques in postmortem brain tissue from people with Alzheimer's," Itzhaki said. "The main proteins of both plaques and tangles accumulate also in HSV1-infected cell cultures — and antiviral drugs can prevent this."

A University of Michigan study found many primary care doctors in the United States are still prescribing sedatives to older adults despite warnings of risk of injury and death, reports News-Medical . The researchers analyzed data about all prescriptions written in 2015 by primary care providers for enrollees in the Medicare Part D prescription drug program, along with county-level health and socioeconomic data from the County Health Rankings project. In 2015, 122,054 primary care providers prescribed 728 million days' worth of benzodiazepines to Part D beneficiaries at a cost of $200 million. Alabama, Tennessee, West Virginia, Florida, and Louisiana had the highest intensity of prescribing, while benzodiazepines comprised 2.3 percent of all medication days prescribed to Part D participants by providers in 2015. Primary care doctors constituted 62 percent of that total, and higher sedative prescription intensity also was linked at the county level with more days of poor mental health, a higher percentage of disability-eligible Medicare beneficiaries, and a larger suicide rate. Moreover, doctors with higher percentages of white beneficiaries, or who received the "Extra Help" payments available to low-income, low-resource Part D beneficiaries, were more likely to be high-intensity sedative prescribers.

U.S. senior centers' mission has changed to the point that many organizations have been rebranded as communities for active adults, reports TribLIVE.com . "Traditionally, people came to a center primarily for a meal, but we're not seeing that so much any more these days," notes Bridget Schickel with the Westmoreland County Area Agency on Aging in Pennsylvania. Meals remain a primary service provided by the centers, along with activities such as bingo, parties, and bus trips, but services also are expanding into broader areas of both physical and mental fitness. Schickel says these changes reflect longer life expectancy and people staying healthy, active, and engaged in society at older ages. These are being fueled by what residents want and by what federal regulations permit or require. "They're looking for mental and physical stimulation and a place to meet people," says Mary Corsi with the McKenna Center for Active Adults in Greensburg, Pa. "So we're not a senior center, we're a gathering place."