A study published in PLoS Medicine suggests traumatic brain injury (TBI) may elevate the risk of dementia, reports ABC News . The researchers examined 3 million Swedes 50 years and older who were diagnosed with TBI or dementia between 1964 and 2012. They compared them with subjects who did not have TBI, as well as with siblings without TBI when possible. "We showed that up to 30 years or more, there is a 25 percent increased risk of dementia after traumatic brain injury," says Umeå University's Peter Nordström. A higher risk of dementia also was associated with more severe TBI or multiple TBIs. The results of the 46,970 sibling pairs suggested the connection between TBI and dementia is just as strong even after adjusting for upbringing, education, and genetics, according to Nordström. However, although the observational study shows a strong association between TBI and dementia, there is still a lack of evidence that TBI actually causes dementia. Future studies in this area would have to prove a cause-and-effect relationship, and could investigate other disabilities linked to TBI. "I think this study will pinpoint the importance of continuing preventative safety measures in sports and doing what we already know to reduce the risk of dementia, such as avoiding excess alcohol intake and high blood pressure," Nordström says.

The www.aptwebstudy.org website allows volunteers to participate in clinical trials of Alzheimer's drugs and have their cognitive abilities monitored under the supervision of researchers that include San Diego's Alzheimer's Therapeutic Research Institute (ATRI), reports Medical Xpress . People 50 and older are invited to enroll in the screening, says ATRI Director Dr. Paul Aisen. The initiative is designed to identify apparently normal people at higher risk for Alzheimer's who can then be administered experimental therapies. Aisen says volunteers will fill out a questionnaire about their assessment of their cognitive abilities and then take a test to evaluate those abilities. The test will be repeated over time to look for early signs of deterioration. Aisen notes he wants to get "tens of thousands" of volunteers signed up, and the goal of the project is to furnish a large pool of ready volunteers who can quickly be enrolled in any Alzheimer's trial they qualify for. This should accelerate the rollout of new trials and hopefully result in faster answers about whether new Alzheimer's therapies work. People participating in clinical trials must be willing to travel to one of 35 sites in the U.S. where they can be tested in person. Aisen says those tests will involve either a brain scan or a spinal tap to look for beta amyloid. "If we see that your scores are steadily declining, even though you have absolutely no symptoms, that tells us a lot about the risk of there being amyloid in your brain," he notes.

The U.S. House of Representatives on Jan. 29 passed H.R. 2255 legislation, which includes the Senior Safe Act to help protect seniors from financial abuse, reports ThinkAdvisor . The Senior Safe Act "facilitates improved communication between insurance producers, life insurance companies, and regulators in the event of suspected financial exploitation of seniors," said American Council of Life Insurers CEO Dirk Kempthorne. "By encouraging the reporting of suspected fraud, the Senior Safe Act improves the ability of companies to work with regulators to protect seniors from losing their retirement savings." Investment Company Institute CEO Paul Schott Stevens noted the "vital legislation will establish a federal protection for financial institutions that act in good faith and with reasonable care to disclose the suspected exploitation of seniors to a regulator or law-enforcement agency. While many states already shield financial institutions from liability when they disclose suspected senior financial abuse, this bill will provide such protection to all financial institutions, including all mutual fund transfer agents."

A Pew study estimated that from 2013 to 2015, the number of users aged 55 to 64 years old who dated online increased from 6 percent to 12 percent, reports National Public Radio . This explosion has led to dating apps with a minimum age requirement. Websites such as OurTime, Stitch, SeniorMatch, and SeniorPeopleMeet all require users to be a certain age — typically 50 or 55 — to sign up. Many of these sites and apps concentrate on companionship, helping users find romantic partners, pen pals, friendships, and communities. A 2016 study from the Journal of Women and Aging found women older than 50 frequently reported unwanted sexual messages online, and they often characterized a lack of responses as a reason they would consider themselves unsuccessful online. The study also determined participants like being able to vet potential dates' personalities via messages and emails first before arranging to get together. Participants said this gave them a sense of safety while dating online, thanks to the ability to control the pace of the dialogue and have the opportunity to build a level of comfort with matches before deciding to meet.

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is helping many people with Parkinson's disease overcome symptoms of tremor, but its use in people with Alzheimer's is still in an experimental stage, reports BBC News . Researchers at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center are using DBS to target the decision-making frontal lobe in the hope of extending the independence of people with Alzheimer's. DBS involves permanently implanting wires, with electrodes, into the brain, and these wires are connected to a pulse generator under the skin of the chest wall. The device transmits electric stimulation to the brain to improve function or reduce symptoms. "This treatment may seem bold and aggressive to some, but it is promising," says neurosurgery expert Andres Lozano in Canada. "Studies so far show it is safe." A study of people undergoing DBS treatment for Alzheimer's published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease found only one of them appeared to benefit significantly. "The study did not compare against a dummy treatment and so while signs of benefit are worthy of follow-up, the full benefits and cost-effectiveness of this treatment need much more robust investigation in larger trials," says Alzheimer's Research UK's Dr. Carol Routledge.

A study published in JAMA Neurology revealed an association between amyloid plaque pathology, assessed by cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers or positron emission tomography amyloid imaging, with circadian disruptions in cognitively normal adults even after accounting for effects of aging and gender, reports MedPage Today . "We found that fragmentation of the circadian rhythm ... was associated with preclinical Alzheimer's disease," says Yo-El S. Ju with the Washington University School of Medicine. The team examined 189 cognitively normal volunteers from the Knight Alzheimer's Disease Research Center from 2010 through 2012. Participants were mostly female, about 67 years old on average, and highly educated. Seventy-four percent of the volunteers were amyloid negative while those who were Pittsburgh Compound B (PiB)-positive were older. Lacking amyloid pathology, older age and male gender were associated with a significant elevation in rest-activity fragmentation and decreased circadian rhythm amplitude. Following adjustment for age and sex, PiB-positive individuals had more circadian fragmentation than PiB-negative participants. "Altogether, our data suggest that aging and preclinical AD pathology have separate and additive negative effects on circadian rhythm fragmentation," the researchers note. Also detected was a significant correlation between the number of naps participants took and circadian fragmentation, suggesting disrupted daytime rest-activity patterns might be a sign of presymptomatic Alzheimer's.

Scammers regularly exploit the tax season to deceive victims into sending them money by masquerading as Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agents and demanding payment for fake tax bills, reports the Washington Post. The IRS has a policy to never call consumers to demand such payment. The agency also has issued an advisory to employers about a phishing scam in which cybercriminals attempt to trick staff or other employees into revealing payroll information. The fraudsters send emails pretending to be executives requesting copies of W-2 forms for employees, which have addresses, Social Security numbers, income, and withholdings. The crooks exploit this information to file bogus tax returns or sell the data on the online black market. With this week being Tax Identity Theft Awareness Week, the Federal Trade Commission has teamed with various organizations to host free webinars and Twitter chats to help raise awareness of tax scams.

A study from the Kaiser Family Foundation calculated out-of-pocket healthcare costs for Medicare beneficiaries will likely consume half their average Social Security income by 2030, reports the Washington Post . More than half of beneficiaries in traditional Medicare older than 85 or with incomes of less than $20,000 spent at least 20 percent of their total income on healthcare costs in 2013. Furthermore, among all beneficiaries, average out-of-pocket health-related costs depleted 41 percent of their average Social Security income in the same year. "This is substantially higher than the share reported by the Medicare actuaries for the same year (23 percent) because it takes into account the full array of out-of-pocket health expenses that people on Medicare face," the report noted. The median out-of-pocket healthcare spending burden for beneficiaries in traditional Medicare is anticipated to climb from 14 percent to 17 percent of their total income between 2013 and 2030. "Even if there is a segment of the Medicare population that is healthy and a segment that is wealthy, there are many people who are struggling to make ends meet and paying a chunk of their limited income on health expenses," says the Kaiser Family Foundation's Tricia Neuman. She also notes beneficiaries' burden would worsen if policymakers try to cut federal spending by shifting more costs onto them. "This report shows just what the burden already is today in the absence of any program cuts," Neuman says.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has issued a report marking the end of the first year of the Trump Administration, highlighting accomplishments in that year. "In 2017, HHS took bold action to advance its mission to protect and enhance the health and well-being of the American people," said HHS Press Secretary Caitlin Oakley. "From a newly aggressive approach to combat the opioid crisis to round-the-clock responses to three major hurricanes, the men and women of HHS did extraordinary work this past year to foster healthier Americans, stronger communities, and a safer country." Among HHS' achievements in 2017, as noted in the report, was investing more than $800 million to combat the opioids crisis, and the approval of 1,027 generic drugs, which is the most realized in a single year in Food and Drug Administration history. Also highlighted was $3.2 billion in drug savings for seniors thanks to a new Medicare policy, $3.1 billion recovered from criminal and civil actions in the first three quarters, and 70 regulatory actions withdrawn and 68 deregulatory actions implemented in the Fall 2017 Unified Agenda.

Rural hospital closures can have devastating effects for older adults because they are bigger users of healthcare than younger ones, reports Next Avenue . The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill's Mark Holmes says driving long distances to seek care is a harder problem for older adults, while more costs for fuel and an early-morning procedure may mean traveling the day before, adding meal and hotel expenses to the bill. "Family may not be there to provide informal care or assistance, unless someone takes time off from work to be with them," Holmes notes. Meanwhile, the Kaiser Family Foundation says hospital closures make it more likely that older adults may not receive all the care they need, and may skip basic preventive care that raises the odds of an earlier death. About 50 percent of U.S. short-term acute care hospitals are in rural regions, with about 40 percent in the South. They supply a greater percentage of outpatient care than their urban counterparts, and are often a community's single source of comprehensive healthcare. More than half of all rural closures in 2010 through 2014 were in the South, impacting about 800,000 people, while another 700,000 rural residents lost access to inpatient care when the hospitals converted to emergency or outpatient only. Holmes predicts more rural communities will probably lose their hospitals owing to financial problems, difficulty recruiting qualified practitioners, and dwindling numbers of care recipients as younger people leave.