Faced with users who have deteriorating vision and dexterity, a growing number of companies are making their websites easier to read and navigate, observes the Wall Street Journal . Among them is the prescription-discount firm SingleCare. Owned by Boston-based RxSense LLC, it has been gradually redesigning its website to better serve the needs of users 50 and older since its 2015 launch. A study conducted by Beyond Consultancy and Savanta Group Ltd. found that 58 percent of adults age 65 and over have increased their use of technology over the last six months. However, only 42 percent say they find technology straightforward to use and 13 percent say they find going online a "frustrating experience." Seniors will quickly abandon a company website that is inaccessible to them, which — in the pandemic era — can equate to abandoning the company altogether, warns Beyond Consultancy CEO Nick Rappolt.

A Charles Schwab survey estimates that the average baby boomer's savings will last only seven years in retirement unless they pull back on spending, reports Yahoo! Money . The poll found boomers' retirement nest egg averages $920,400, but they should expect to spend $135,100 annually to sustain their ideal lifestyle in retirement. "For many there's a potential gap between what they have saved and the retirement they're envisioning," said Charles Schwab's Rob Williams. Aspiring retirees expect to retire at age 66, seven years later than those who have been retired for at least five years — implying they plan to stay employed longer, which could help boost their savings and reduce how much money they will need in retirement. One-third of those approaching retirement also intend to work part time, versus 2 percent of those who have already retired. "To ensure you don't outlive your money, it's critical to have a full-blown financial plan in place that's been tested against market downturns, healthy risks and other unexpected factors," recommended Tony Zabiegala at Strategic Wealth Partners. Meanwhile, about two in three boomers would rather spend money in retirement than leave a legacy for their children, while 40 percent expect their quality of life in retirement to be better than their children's.

The University of California, Irvine (UC Irvine) and dozens of other research centers are moving forward with the AHEAD study, a global test of whether an investigational drug can slow down the earliest brain changes associated with Alzheimer's disease. UC Irvine's Joshua Grill tells National Public Radio that finding enrollees is challenging even without a pandemic to contend with. Participants will get either a placebo or a drug, BAN2401, which is meant to reduce levels of amyloid. They also will undergo positron emission tomography scans of their brains to measure changes in amyloid and tau protein. UC Irvine has deployed numerous safety measures to minimize exposure to COVID-19. Medical staff will be screened daily, patient visits are spaced out to avoid overlaps, exam rooms undergo extra cleaning, and personal protective equipment is routine. Grill says enrollment has become difficult in African American and Latino communities, which have been especially impacted by COVID-19. Crystal Glover at the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center in Chicago is consulting on recruitment efforts at other centers, including those participating in the AHEAD study. "If we are looking to enroll folks now, we need to reach back out to the communities in which we already have relationships," she explains.

A report by the New School's Retirement Equity Lab says that unemployment rates for workers 55 and older have exceeded those of mid-career workers for the entire course of the COVID-19 pandemic. MarketWatch columnist Paul Brandus cites numbers suggesting that employers are using the crisis to divest themselves of older workers. "Employers are not preserving the skills and experience that older workers have like they have in past downturns," said the New School's Teresa Ghilarducci. "It looks like they're being let go first, and employers are shying away from re-hiring them." Ghilarducci notes that since the pandemic began, older workers have lost jobs faster, but have been re-hired at a slower rate, creating an unemployment gap of 1.1 percent between older workers' six-month average unemployment rate of 9.7 percent and mid-career workers' rate of 8.6 percent. "It also might be a once-in-a-lifetime chance for employers to shed older workers, because the Trump administration is not enforcing age-discrimination laws," Ghilarducci points out.

AstraZeneca this morning announced that its potential COVID-19 vaccine has produced a similar immune response in both older and younger adults, reports CNBC News . AstraZeneca, which is developing its potential vaccine with the University of Oxford, said adverse responses to the vaccine among senior men and women were also found to be lower. The World Health Organization has said that older adults, in addition to people of all ages with pre-existing medical conditions, have been prone to developing serious illness on contracting the coronavirus more so than others. This latest announcement is likely to boost hopes of a vaccine being developed prior to the end of 2020. "It is encouraging to see immunogenicity responses were similar between older and younger adults and that reactogenicity was lower in older adults, where the COVID-19 disease severity is higher," an AstraZeneca spokesman commented. "The results further build the body of evidence for the safety and immunogenicity of AZD1222 the technical name of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine."

Bank of America's 2020 Workplace Benefits Report estimated that only about half of polled U.S. employees are saving money for healthcare expenses in retirement, with those not saving having made a major misunderstanding about Medicare, reports the Grand Island Independent . Twenty-six percent of respondents believed Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security would cover their healthcare costs in their later years, leading them to mistakenly think that they do not need to set aside money for care. While Social Security provides monthly income, the average monthly benefit of just $1,519 among retirees will make little headway in healthcare expenses for those who have chronic conditions or serious ailments. Although Medicaid provides coverage to a limited number of seniors, they must spend down most of their assets, with very little household income to qualify for coverage. Because Medicare coverage is not that comprehensive, most seniors wind up spending thousands out of pocket even with coverage. According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, out-of-pocket medical expenses for a senior couple covered by Medicare in 2020 comes to $325,000 throughout retirement. Moreover, many Americans end up retiring before the age of 65, before they become Medicare eligible.

New research cited by U.S. News & World Report shows that seniors who lose their sense of smell — which physicians have termed "call olfactory dysfunction" — have higher odds of dying from all causes within five years. Scientists had previously discovered a link between olfactory dysfunction and impaired cognitive ability. Said study author Dr. Janet Choi, a resident in otolaryngology at the University of Southern California, "We suspected there would be an association with olfactory dysfunction and mortality as well, considering that this is an early marker for a lot of neurodegenerative diseases." Choi's research team reviewed nationwide survey and death data from approximately 3,500 people age 40 and over. The polls included both self-reported loss of smell and an objective smell test. Over the five-year study, the research team found no increased mortality risk based on self-reported loss of smell. However, the risk of death increased 18 percent for every 1-point decrease in scores on the so-called "pocket smell test." The mortality link was significant for adults 65 and older, but not among those between 40 and 64, researchers noted.

A preclinical study in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease suggests an antigen-presenting dendritic vaccine with a specific antibody response to oligomeric A-beta (Aß) may be safer and clinically beneficial in treating Alzheimer's disease, reports ScienceDaily . The vaccine, E22W42 DC, utilizes dendritic cells (DC) impregnated with a modified Aß peptide. The researchers tested the vaccine with modified Aß-sensitized DC harvested from mouse bone marrow. These cells interact with T-cells and B-cells to help regulate immunity. The vaccine was found to slow memory impairment in Alzheimer's transgenic mice, with mice in the E22W42 DC-vaccinated cohort exhibiting memory performance similar to that of nontransgenic, untreated mice. E22W42 DC-vaccinated mice also had significantly less errors in working memory than those injected with non-sensitized dendritic cells only. "This therapeutic vaccine uses the body's own immune cells to target the toxic Aß molecules that accumulate harmfully in the brain," said the University of South Florida Health's Chuanhai Cao. "And, importantly, it provides strong immunomodulatory effects without inducing an unwanted, vaccine-associated autoimmune reaction."

In Scientific American , Dheeraj Roy, a McGovern Fellow in the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, writes that the scientific community may be closer to understanding why people with dementia-causing diseases suffer memory loss. Difficulty recalling recent events is a hallmark of early Alzheimer's, often attributed to either an inability to correctly store new information in the brain, or a weakened ability to remember stored information. Roy says a 2016 study in Nature focused on both memory storage and memory recall processes in an animal model of early Alzheimer's. "I developed an approach that allowed us to activate the neurons that store memory information, referred to as memory engrams, through optogenetics — that is, introducing a gene that is light sensitive into the memory engram cells of 'Alzheimer's' mice, then delivering blue light pulses to activate them — and measuring memory recall strength directly," he explains. Surprisingly, there were comparable concentrations of engram cells in normal healthy animals and Alzheimer's animals, implying that the initial memory storage process is preserved. "Targeting the recall process in Alzheimer's animals led to an improvement in their memory, which reached the performance level of normal animals," Roy says. A later study in PNAS confirmed the existence of a similar memory recall problem in another animal model of amnesia. Roy says these two studies clearly illustrate that "we need to take advantage of targeting recall to help treat patients in the near future."

A study in JAMA Surgery found older adults who used opioid pain drugs before minor surgery were up to 68 percent more likely to die within 90 days of the operation compared with those who never used opioids, reports United Press International . Even in subjects older than 65 with low levels of opioid use up to eight months before surgery, about 55 people per 10,000 in the general population died within 90 days of the procedure. Older adults who had not used opioid pain drugs prior to surgery died at a rate of just over 40 per 10,000 in the general population within 90 days. "People who have preoperative exposure to opioids have a higher risk of mortality after outpatient surgery," said the University of Michigan Health System's Katherine Santosa. "Although our analysis cannot discern the underlying causes for this, our findings highlight the need to screen for opioid-related risk prior to surgery."