Using medical records, researchers tracked more than 13,000 people in a large northern California health plan from roughly their 40s and 50s into their 80s. Compared to people who had never been depressed, those who experienced symptoms of depression in middle age — but not later in life — were about 20% more likely to go on to develop dementia.

Those who received a depression diagnosis later in life only were at even greater risk. That group had about a 70% increased risk of dementia compared to their depression-free peers, according to the study, which was published this week in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

In a first, the researchers also found that the timing of the depression seemed to predict which type of dementia an individual would develop. Late-life depression was linked with Alzheimer’s disease, while mid-life depression was mostly connected with a related condition known as vascular dementia.

Although Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia share many of the same outward symptoms, they’re associated with different processes in the brain. In Alzheimer’s, memory loss and other symptoms are believed to be caused by protein deposits that interfere with brain function. Vascular dementia, on the other hand, appears to occur when blood flow to certain areas of the brain is interrupted, such as during strokes and so-called mini-strokes.

The study participants were 3.5 times more likely to develop vascular dementia if they’d experienced depression symptoms in both middle age and later in life, which suggests that “recurring depression over the life course seems to be triggering vascular changes that puts [people] at risk for vascular dementia,” says lead author Deborah E. Barnes, Ph.D., an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco.

By contrast, depression that appears for the first time in old age may simply be an early symptom of Alzheimer’s rather than a stand-alone condition, Barnes says.

Continue reading from cnn.com…

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One of the key strategies for Medicare implemented by the Obama health reform bill is a shift away from treating illness to a focus on preventing illness through efforts such as increased preventive health screening and paying doctors for advising senior citizens on how to live healthier lives. A new national study says, however, that a majority of healthcare practices across the country aren’t prepared to meet the demand of the 46.6 million Medicare beneficiaries who are now eligible for these wellness visits.

As Healthcare expenditures in the United States near $2.6 trillion, TeleVox Software, Inc., a leading provider of patient engagement communications (EC) services, today released a Healthy World Report titled, Healthcare Change: The Time is Now. The report addresses the healthcare industry’s essential shift away from primarily treating illness to keeping seniors healthy.

“With Medicare facing trillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities — meaning it will have to pay trillions of dollars more than is coming in – there is an understandable push for preventive care,” said Scott Zimmerman, President, TeleVox Software, Inc.

“In order for the program to be economically sustainable, costs must be lowered without compromising care. Our focus must be helping Medicare recipients manage chronic conditions, which have accounted for as much as one-third of all spending growth in recent years.”

Continue reading from seniorjournal.com…

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(HealthDay News) — Regular consumption of berries, such as blueberries or strawberries, may help keep your brain functioning well as you age, new research suggests.

The study found that women with the highest intake of berries appeared to delay cognitive aging by up to 2.5 years. Cognition refers to brain activities such as thinking, remembering and reasoning.

“Given that we know that fruits and vegetables are good for our health in general, our findings add to the idea that we should be consuming more, especially berries, as a way to help maintain memory in older ages,” said the study’s lead author, Elizabeth Devore, an instructor in medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, in Boston.

“Berries are a simple dietary intervention that may be helpful to the brain,” Devore added.

Results of the study were published online April 26 in the Annals of Neurology.

Berries and other fruits and vegetables are rich in substances known as flavonoids. Flavonoids help protect the body’s cells from damage and reduce inflammation.

“Flavonoids, which are antioxidants found in berries, apples, citrus fruits, tea, red wine and onions, have been shown to reduce the risk of chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and cancers,” explained nutritionist Nancy Copperman, director of public health initiatives at the North Shore-LIJ Health System in Great Neck, N.Y.

Berries contain a particular flavonoid called anthocyanidin. Devore said anthocyanidin helps give berries their rich colors, and it’s found in fruits such as raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, cherries, elderberries, and red and concord grapes.

Devore explained that one of the things that’s special about anthocyanidins is that they can cross the blood-brain barrier and that these flavonoids tend to locate in the areas of the brain responsible for memory and learning.

Continue reading from healthday.com…

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The memory loss and other cognitive changes characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease and most other forms of dementia can’t be reversed. But there are some proven ways to delay further decline, at least over the short term.

Mental Activity

A growing body of research indicates that stimulating the brain has the power to slow the progress of Alzheimer’s, particularly in the early stages. Healthy elderly adults who are mentally active were 2.6 times less likely to develop dementia, according to the Rush Memory and Aging Project, an ongoing longitudinal study involving more than 1,200 older people.

What you can do:

Encourage the person in your care to participate in activities she finds pleasurable, especially those that engage the mind: reading, writing, playing the piano, working crosswords or puzzle books, playing games such as chess, or even learning a language. Present her with fresh materials or plenty of opportunities.

Continue reading from caring.com…

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The government plans to announce today that the 2010 health care law will save Medicare beneficiaries $208 billion through 2020, and save Medicare itself $200 billion through 2016, based on a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services actuary report.

“We have achieved significant tangible savings that have been passed on to beneficiaries,” said Jonathan Blum, director of the Center for Medicare. “There’s a tremendous opportunity for even greater savings.”

Just as important, officials said, private health care providers have moved forward on their own to enact some of the law’s provisions.

“The real surprise is the tremendous interest in reform,” Blum said, adding that they expected savings. “What you can’t predict with accuracy is behavior change.”

A year ago, Blum said, there was animosity toward accountable care organizations — or health care teams that worked together for a patient’s care — but private providers are now taking up the practice on their own. That comes as access to data shows that good care and savings can go together, he said.

There has been a “rising tide of commitment” from physicians, hospitals and insurers who are beginning to believe better care can be provided at a lower cost, said Rick Gilfillan, director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. “In some instances, the private sector is leading to improve the way care is delivered.”

Continue reading from usatoday.com…

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There’s truth to the adage that you’re only as old as you feel. “Physical well-being and subjective well-being are two sides of the same coin,” says Howard Friedman, author of The Longevity Project, a research-based look at who lives the longest and why. “Mental health affects physical health, and physical health affects mental health.”

Research paints a compelling argument. Adults with serious mental illness like schizophrenia die about 25 years earlier than the general population, according to a 2007 report from the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors. They’re 3.4 times more likely to die of heart disease or diabetes, 3.8 times more likely to die in an accident, 5 times more likely to die of respiratory ailments, and 6.6 times more likely to die of pneumonia or flu, found the team led by Joseph Parks, director of the Missouri Institute of Mental Health.

Why? They often get little exercise, leading to obesity and hiking the odds of diabetes and heart disease. They’re also more likely than others to smoke and have alcohol and drug-abuse problems. It’s common for their medical needs to slip through the cracks, too, because they often cannot adequately advocate for their own health.

Continue reading from usnews.com…

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Be happy — it seems to be good for your heart.

Scientists have long known that Type A personalities and people who are chronically angry, anxious or depressed have a higher risk of heart attacks.

Now a Harvard review of the flip side of that psychology concludes that being upbeat and optimistic just may help protect against heart disease.

Rather than focusing only on how to lessen heart risks, “it might also be useful to focus on how we might bolster the positive side of things,” said lead researcher Julia Boehm of the Harvard School of Public Health.

Boehm reviewed dozens of studies examining a positive outlook — as determined by various psychological measurements — on heart health. Optimism in particular seems key, as a number of studies found the most optimistic people had half the risk of a first heart attack when compared to the least optimistic, Boehm said.

Why? Previous work shows the stress associated with negative psychological traits can lead to damage of arteries and the heart itself.

Boehm found that people with a better sense of well-being tend to have healthier blood pressure, cholesterol and weight, and are more likely to exercise, eat healthier, get enough sleep and avoid smoking. But she cautioned that it will take more research to tease apart if a positive outlook makes people feel more like taking heart-healthy steps — or whether living healthier helps you feel more positive.

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Here’s the good news: Heart disease and its consequences are largely preventable. The bad news is that nearly one million Americans will suffer a heart attack this year.

Ron Winslow on Lunch Break looks at how to prevent a heart attack, and Melinda Beck discusses symptoms to look out for and what to do while waiting for paramedics. Photo: Getty Images.

Deaths from coronary heart disease in the U.S. have been cut by 75% during the past 40 years. Hospital admissions for heart attack among the elderly fell by nearly 25% in a five-year period during the last decade, a remarkable feat when many experts had expected the aging population to cause an increase in the problem.

Cardiovascular disease remains the leading killer of both men and women. Doctors worry that the steady progress from an intense public-health campaign beginning in the 1960s is in jeopardy thanks to the obesity epidemic and rising prevalence of diabetes. Only a relative handful of people are fully compliant with recommendations for diet, exercise and other personal habits well proven to help keep hearts healthy.

Continue reading from wsj.com…

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Millions watch as iPod music “lights up” man in nursing home

Songs from our past have amazing power to take us back years or decades. That is demonstrated dramatically in a clip from a new film that has gone viral in the past few days: It shows an elderly man named Henry Dreher who emerges from a near stupor to dance in his chair, sing with gusto and wax poetic — all thanks to an iPod loaded with the songs of Cab Calloway, Bing Crosby and other favorites from the nursing home resident’s youth.

The documentary is called Alive Inside and it was made to promote a charity called Music & Memory. The non-profit group donates iPods to nursing homes and trains staff and family members to personalize them for people with dementia and other conditions. The film will have a formal premiere Wednesday at the Rubin Museum in New York.

But as of tonight, more than 3.3 million people have viewed two versions of the clip on YouTube — and many clearly find it moving. “Beautiful, uplifting, moving, inspiring. The power of Music is immense. Alzheimer’s hit my father. My mother’s Love plus Music added many years to his life. When he could hardly speak, he still harmonised joyfully,” one viewer wrote.

In the film, Dreher’s responses are observed by neurologist and author Oliver Sacks, whose writings on Parkinson’s disease inspired the film Awakenings. At first Dreher, who has dementia, is “inert, maybe depressed, unresponsive and almost unalive,” Sacks says. “Then he is given an iPod with his favorite music and he lights up.”

Someone asks Dreher, 94, what music means to him: “It gives me the feeling of love, romance,” he says. “I feel the band of love and dreams.” Dreher also delivers a soulful version of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” and does some pretty amazing Calloway-style scat talking. This is from a man who usually struggles to answer ‘yes’ and ‘no’ questions, Sacks says.

Click HERE to view the video, and continue reading from usatoday.com…

New View of Depression: An Ailment of the Entire Body

Scientists are increasingly finding that depression and other psychological disorders can be as much diseases of the body as of the mind.

People with long-term psychological stress, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder tend to develop earlier and more serious forms of physical illnesses that usually hit people in older age, such as stroke, dementia, heart disease and diabetes. Recent research points to what might be happening on the cellular level that could account for this.

Scientists are finding that the same changes to chromosomes that happen as people age can also be found in people experiencing major stress and depression.

The phenomenon, known as “accelerated aging,” is beginning to reshape the field’s understanding of stress and depression not merely as psychological conditions but as body-wide illnesses in which mood may be just the most obvious symptom.

“As we learn more…we will begin to think less of depression as a ‘mental illness’ or even a ‘brain disease,’ but as a systemic illness,” says Owen Wolkowitz, a psychiatry professor at the University of California, San Francisco, who along with colleagues has conducted research in the field.

Gaining a better understanding of the mechanisms that link physical and mental conditions could someday prove helpful in diagnosing and treating psychological illnesses and improving cognition in people with memory problems, Dr. Wolkowitz says.

In an early look at accelerated aging, researchers at Duke University found about 20 years ago that brain scans of older people with depression showed much faster age-related loss of volume in the brain compared with people without depression. The reasons for the accelerated aging appeared to go beyond unhealthy behaviors, like smoking, diet and lack of exercise, researchers said.

Recent efforts to study what is behind accelerated aging on a cellular level have focused on telomeres, a protective covering at the ends of chromosomes that have been recognized as playing an important role in aging. Telomeres get shorter as people age, and shortened telomeres also are related to increased risk of disease and mortality.

Continue reading from wsj.com…