On January 9, Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) praised the unanimous passage of their bipartisan bill to establish a coordinated strategy to support family caregivers, known as the Recognize, Assist, Include, Support, and Engage (RAISE) Family Caregivers Act, according to Sen. Collins' website . Under the legislation, the Secretary of Health and Human Services would be directed to develop and uphold policy to acknowledge and support the more than 40 million family caregivers in the U.S. More than 60 aging and disability organizations have endorsed the RAISE Family Caregivers Act, which now goes to the president's desk for signing into law. "Family caregivers play an essential role in our communities by dedicating time and attention and making countless personal and financial sacrifices to care for their loved ones," Collins said. "I am delighted that our bipartisan legislation to develop a coordinated strategic plan to leverage our resources, promote best practices, and expand services and training available to caregivers will now become law. This law will provide family caregivers across America with the much-needed recognition they deserve as well as the resources and training they need to better balance the full-time job of caregiving along with everything else that life brings."

Alex Azar, the Trump administration's nominee for Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary, vowed to reduce drug prices at his Tuesday confirmation hearing, implying a willingness to follow alternative policies that might go further in dealing with drug makers' list prices, reports Stat . "The most important thing we have to figure out is, can we reverse the incentive on list prices?" Azar said. "There's a lot that we all know we can do on the net, the discounted prices. But I want to work with this committee and anyone who is smart and thoughtful about it. Can we create incentives that actually pull down those list prices so that when the consumer walks in needing to pay out of pocket at the pharmacy, that they're not hit with those kind of costs." Azar also reiterated an earlier indication that he is amenable to more government drug price negotiations, modeled after how private Medicare drug plans negotiate prices for beneficiaries. However, he balked at broader drug price negotiations within Medicare, suggesting policies that depend on a national formulary would significantly limit seniors' access to drugs. Azar also repeated his promise to prioritize addressing drug prices if his HHS Secretary nomination is confirmed.

A study from researchers at the University of Missouri published in Intimate Relationships and Social Change found unmarried couples who opt for long-distance or cross-residential relationships perceive having a flexible mindset about their relationships, especially when one partner requires additional care, reports Phys.org . A lack of knowledge about living apart together (LAT) relationships that are becoming increasingly common among older adults in the U.S. suggests certain family issues that become important later on, such as caregiving or medical decision-making, could be difficult to make for LAT couples and their families. "The societal standard for senior caregiving in the United States is to expect spouses and adult children to step in as primary caregivers; however, we do not know how these expectations apply in LAT arrangements," says lead researcher Jacquelyn Benson. "In our research we are learning that, while living apart seems to be almost universally viewed as a necessity for maintaining relationship satisfaction for these couples, paradoxically couples also are willing to make changes in living arrangements to provide caregiving support to one another." In interviewing adults at least 60 years old and in committed relationships but who lived apart, Benson determined for most couples, living separately and being independent was considered ideal. Study participants understood that keeping separate homes was the simplest way to protect their autonomy. "Most of the individuals we interviewed had not been tested by the realities of caregiving within their current LAT partnerships," Benson notes. "It will be important to follow LAT partners over time to see if their willingness transforms into action and understand the mechanisms that explain these care provision decisions."

A study published in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry suggests smaller social networks and feelings of isolation may be key risk factors for late-life depression in older adults with a history of childhood abuse along with an earlier onset of depression, reports News-Medical . "Apart from the presence of childhood abuse, also the age at depression onset is important to consider in older adults and might give some clues as to which factors are important in treatment," says Ilse Wielaard with the VU University Medical Center in the Netherlands. The results of the study emphasize the importance of spotting the presence of childhood abuse in adults with depression and possibly incorporating this into therapy.

A new study published in PLOS One suggests older adults with diabetes have higher odds of developing cognitive impairment and having a shorter life expectancy compared with non-diabetics, reports Healio . "The precise physiologic pathways linking diabetes and cognitive impairment remain largely undetermined," note the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research's Carlos Díaz-Venegas and colleagues. "Given that cognitive impairment is a major cause of loss of independence, presents a barrier to medication adherence, and results in extremely high care costs, policies aimed at improving outcomes among those with diabetes should be informed by the level of cognitive impairment in this population." The researchers used data from the U.S. Health and Retirement Study to analyze age at onset of cognitive impairment and life expectancy with and without cognitive impairment by diabetes status among middle- and older-aged adults. Included were 13,687 individuals aged 50 to 74 contributing 136,367 person-years of follow-up from 2000 to 2012. For men, women, and for most ages, diabetics had a higher prevalence of cognitive impairment than non-diabetics. Moreover, the average cognition score for diabetics was 1.7 points lower and the prevalence of cognitive impairment was more than 10 percent higher versus non-diabetics. From age 50 on, diabetic men and women underwent a first incidence of cognitive impairment three and four years earlier, respectively, than those without diabetes. Diabetes decreased total life expectancy by five to seven years and cognitively healthy life expectancy by four to six years. In comparison with non-diabetics, diabetics lived about one year less with poor cognitive health.

A webinar hosted by the Administration for Community Living's National Alzheimer's and Dementia Resource Center and the American Society on Aging scheduled for January 30 will cover international viewpoints on supporting people with dementia and their caregivers. The presentation will offer results from a poll on stigma given to people with dementia and caregivers from 54 countries. The presentation also will describe Scotland's decade-long effort to improve dementia care and how Focus on Dementia is supporting the deployment of the dementia strategy in practice. Webinar participants will be able to identify with how people with dementia are stigmatized in three ways, as well as identify techniques to help mitigate this stigma in their local communities. In addition, participants will be able to describe Scotland's dementia strategy and progress in this area, as well as understand how Scotland supports the implementation of the dementia strategy into practice. Registration for the webinar can be found here .

Healthcare providers that form partnerships with a wide range of organizations within and outside of the industry could prevent unnecessary utilization and better control costs, reports Modern Healthcare . Communities with active area agencies on aging that leverage government and regional funding to coordinate social services for older adults in communities throughout the country had lower hospital readmission rates, according to a study published Monday in Health Affairs . The informal relationships may indicate a denser web of interconnection across community organizations that can support the handoffs that help individuals recover after being released from the hospital and avoid readmission, said lead author Amanda Brewster, an associate research scientist at the Yale School of Public Health. "These results suggest that area agencies on aging could be a promising partner for healthcare organizations looking to connect patients with social services to fill gaps in social determinants." Notably, having broad formal collaborations was not associated with reduced readmission rates but was associated with higher Medicare spending per beneficiary. Counties with area agencies on aging that had 10 or more formal collaborations had annual Medicare spending that was $588 higher per beneficiary compared with those with the fewest formal affiliations. Informal agreements lend themselves to habitual collaborative work and joint priority setting, while formal relationships can be more restrictive, researchers said. Most informal partnerships, or ones that were not bound by a contract, were made with long-term care communities, advocacy organizations, and emergency preparedness agencies. Most formal relationships were between state health insurance assistance programs, Medicaid, and transportation agencies.

Lawmakers on Monday introduced the Increasing Access to a Secure Retirement Act, which would enable employers to provide workers guaranteed lifetime income products in their retirement plans, reports Think Advisor . The bill provides a clear path for employers to meet their fiduciary obligations and will allow more retirement savers the opportunity to convert their retirement savings into guaranteed lifetime income. Another measure, introduced last month, enables employers to use electronic communications when conveying retirement plan information to participants, thus reducing administrative costs. It also maintains important safeguards to ensure participants who still want to receive required communications in paper format continue to do so.

Sedentary older adults who start exercising may experience less disability, according to a new study published online Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine . Researchers assigned 1,635 adults ages 70 to 89 to participate either in a structured exercise program or in health education workshops, reports Reuters . The exercisers did up to 150 minutes a week of walking and activities to improve strength, balance, and flexibility. After two years, people who were not frail at the start of the study were no less likely to become frail with exercise than without it, the study found, but they were less likely to lose their ability to rise from a chair, one component of frailty. "The benefits of physical activity in terms of preventing physical disability still persist in older adults who are already experiencing symptoms of frailty," said senior study author Roger Fielding of Tufts University in Boston.

Following a Mediterranean diet that is rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and nuts may reduce the risk of frailty in older individuals, reports Medical Xpress . The findings, which were published Monday in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society , suggest that a diet emphasising plant-based foods and low to moderate amounts of fish and poultry helps keep people healthy and independent as they age. "People who followed a Mediterranean diet the most were overall less than half as likely to become frail over a nearly four-year period compared with those who followed it the least," said Kate Walters of the University College London Institute of Epidemiology and Health. The diet, which also includes low to moderate amounts of wine, is low in saturated fat and sugar and has been associated with multiple health benefits, including lower incidences of cardiovascular disease, neurodegenerative diseases, diabetes, overall cancer incidence, as well as prolonged survival. The researchers conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of four published studies examining associations between adherence to a Mediterranean diet and development of frailty in older adults. Their analysis included 5,789 people over 60 living in France, Spain, Italy, and China.