The Missoula City-County Health Department in Montana has announced a new health officer directive to step up COVID-19 measures for all assisted living and long-term care communities and retirement homes with communal gathering spaces, reports NBC Montana . The order comes as the county reports positive COVID-19 cases in at least 10 senior living communities. The new mandates are on top of the governor's order and other requirements. All visitors are barred except for end-of-life compassionate care, while all entrances must have signs posted prohibiting visitors. The order also says new admits and patients being transferred must be quarantined for two weeks from the admit date. Moreover, communities without specific orders due to the coronavirus can permit group activities, provided participants are masked and stay six feet apart. Communities may additionally allow communal dining with the same distancing rule and as long as residents wear masks when entering and exiting the dining room. All staff must further wear surgical-grade masks or higher, while residents should wear cloth face coverings except when outside or alone in a separate room. Any community with a positive COVID-19 test should offer it to all residents and staff regardless of symptoms.

With the U.S. Social Security Administration this week announcing a 1.3 percent cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for benefits in 2021, Reps. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) and John Larson (D-Conn.) plan to propose legislation to raise that to a 3 percent emergency increase next year, reports CNBC . "This absolutely anemic COLA won't even come close to helping seniors afford even their everyday expenses, let alone those exacerbated by COIDV-19," DeFazio declared. The Emergency Social Security COLA for 2021 Act is scheduled to be unveiled on Friday. The Senior Citizens League reported that the average yearly COLA boost since 2010 has been 1.4 percent, but it averaged 3 percent from 1999 to 2009. "Raising the COLA to 3 percent for 2021 will provide seniors with an immediate, crucial lifeline during the ongoing coronavirus crisis," DeFazio said. "It's also critically important that Congress provide a permanent fix to the COLA formula that actually reflects the real costs that seniors face." DeFazio and Larson are separately pushing for revising the measurement used to calculate annual COLA increases. Among the senior advocacy groups supporting their proposal is the Senior Citizens League, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, and Social Security Works.

A University of Southern California (USC) study in the Journal of Neuroscience determined that impaired blood flow in the brain correlates with the buildup of tau tangles in Alzheimer's disease pathology, reports EurekAlert . The implication is that therapies targeting vascular health in the brain — as well as amyloid plaques and tau tangles — may more effectively preserve memory and cognitive function than single-target treatments. "This study confirms that we should carefully consider vascular health and associated risk factors — like high blood pressure, smoking, and physical inactivity — in the course of Alzheimer's prevention," said USC Professor Judy Pa. The researchers examined magnetic resonance imaging and positron-emission tomography scans, along with cerebrospinal fluid, in two cohorts: cognitively normal individuals and those at various stages of dementia, including mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease. Subjects with a strong overlap between vascular dysfunction and tau pathology in key Alzheimer's brain regions, especially amyloid-positive individuals, had the worst cognitive symptoms. "We're now starting to fully appreciate the role of vascular dysfunction in Alzheimer's disease," said Arthur W. Toga with USC's Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute. "Controlling risk factors like smoking and high blood pressure are accessible lifestyle modifications that offer hope for those at risk."

A study in the Journal of Physiology examined the effects of dehydration on older adults, reports Medical News Today . The researchers determined that older adults may not feel as thirsty as young people and ought to hydrate when they work or exercise and when the weather is hot. Without sufficient hydration, dehydration in older adults may persist and rise to hazardous levels. Scientists have suggested that older adults feel less thirsty because of a reduced ability to detect and respond to the level of salt in their blood. Ten younger men (18 to 30 years) and 10 older men (54 to 67 years) underwent exercise heat stress tests. At the start of each session, participants received an intravenous saline solution to increase blood osmolality before entering a heated, whole-body direct-air calorimeter for 60 minutes of stationary cycling. An increase in blood salinity in older men was found not to trigger the body's responses to dehydration as it did in the younger participants. Since the researchers investigated the effects of blood osmolality in physically active participants without any known chronic conditions, it is uncertain whether or not the same finding would apply to older adults with common age-related conditions like type 2 diabetes.

A study in the European Heart Journal found the catheter ablation procedure to restore normal heart rhythm is more effective than drugs in reducing dementia risk in people with atrial fibrillation (AF), reports WebMD . The researchers examined data on patients in South Korea diagnosed with AF between 2005 and 2015, including more than 9,100 who underwent catheter ablation and nearly 18,000 treated with medications. Over a year-long follow-up, catheter ablation lowered dementia incidence by 27 percent compared to medication. "The proportion of people who developed dementia during the follow-up period was 6 percent in the ablation group and 9 percent in the medical therapy group," explained Yonsei University Professor Boyoung Joung. "This suggests that three people per 100 of the atrial fibrillation population avoid dementia if they undergo catheter ablation, and 34 patients would need to be treated to prevent one case of dementia during the follow-up period." Ablation also was associated with a 23 percent reduced incidence of Alzheimer's compared to medications, and a 50 percent reduction in vascular dementia.

A new survey commissioned by Bright Horizons EdAssist Solutions found that 85 percent of full- and part-time employed Americans feel their employers need to rethink their benefits and offerings amid the COVID-19 pandemic, reports Business Wire . Moreover, 78 percent of working Americans believe the pandemic has heightened the need for employers to support workers with education benefits, including tuition reimbursement for degree and non-degree programs. The poll also indicated that 65 percent of employees feel providing education benefits to all workers helps promote racial and gender equality in the workplace. "Now more than ever, employers are looking to build inclusive cultures, create a level playing field for all employees, drive higher retention, and, ultimately, more career advancement," said Bright Horizons' Patrick Donovan. "Workforce education programs can help achieve these goals."

A study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society found variants of a gene that regulates dopamine levels in the brain may influence the mobility of older and frail adults, reports Medical Xpress . Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health examined the COMT gene in more than 500 adults over the age of 65 in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, California, and Maryland, excluding anyone taking dopamine-related medications or diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. They then sought potential links between genotype, frailty, and speed. "We found that in older, frail adults, those who have a high-dopamine genotype are more likely to maintain a faster gait and may be more resilient to mobility disablement as they age," said Pitt Public Health Professor Caterina Rosano. Frail subjects with a high-dopamine COMT genotype had a 10 percent faster walking speed than participants with the low-dopamine COMT genotype. "This 10 percent difference may seem small, but it could make a big difference for a person walking across a busy street while negotiating traffic," said Rosano. "This difference is even more striking when you consider just how many complex genes influence walking."

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine will work with 11 research centers using a $17.8 million grant from the U.S. National Institute on Aging to find more precise diagnostic biomarkers and drug targets for Alzheimer's disease, reports News-Medical . They will use advanced artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to combine and pinpoint patterns in genetic, imaging, and clinical data from more than 60,000 Alzheimer's patients. "Machine learning can help to combine large datasets and tease out a complex pattern that couldn't be seen before," said Penn Medicine Professor Li Shen. The first goal of the project will be to find a connection between genes, imaging, and clinical symptoms to identify the patterns anticipating Alzheimer's diagnosis and progression and to differentiate subtypes of the disease. "We want to redefine the term 'Alzheimer's disease,'" said Penn Medicine Professor Christos Davatzikos. "The truth is that a treatment that works for one set of patients, may not work for another." The researchers will apply those findings to a predictive model of cognitive decline and disease progression, which can be used to guide treatment for future patients.

Starting this Saturday, residents of long-term assisted living communities in Minnesota will be allowed to have in-person visitations despite rising COVID-19 cases in the state, reports CBS Minnesota . The Minnesota Department of Health's guidelines state that a long-term care (LTC) community can permit indoor visits if it has not experienced a COVID-19 case in the prior 14 days and the positivity rate in its county is less than 10 percent. "We know the benefits of increasing social interaction for residents of LTC," said department commissioner Jan Malcolm. "We know the health consequences directly from isolation." State health officials caution that the relaxation of visit restrictions does not mean people should be any less careful, especially with the state having five consecutive days with more than 1,000 new cases. Todd Klien with the Copperfield Hill community in Robbinsdale said they will carefully schedule and monitor the number of visitors entering the building. "They just need to make sure that they are taking all the same precautions that we would expect our residents to be taking, too, and not putting into jeopardy any of the health, any of the safety of the staff that work here or residents that live here," he said.

An artificial intelligence startup in Vancouver, Canada, has unveiled a smart fall alert system designed to monitor seniors and report emergencies instantly to family or caregivers, reports Yahoo! Finance . AltumView's Cypress Smart Home Care Alert System watches the movements and activities of a senior and detects falls, waving for help, and wanderings, which are common among those with dementia. The system reports these incidents in real time via an app that can be accessed anywhere using a mobile device. The tool can assess fall risk by providing a visual heat map of an area where falls are frequent, allowing the caregiver to implement safety measures to prevent similar accidents from recurring. The sensor also can maintain the privacy of the person being monitored by showing caregivers a stick-figure animation instead of a raw video. Cypress does not retain personal data on the device and encrypts all communication between the sensor and the cloud. The technology is perfect for senior communities, home care service providers, and individual residences with aged family members. AltumView said the system also can help enhance the quality of service of long-term care communities and reduce the workload of senior care providers.