Posts

Jessica Klersy

Where Law Meets Empathy: Fighting for the Rights of the Elderly and Disabled | Jessica Klersy

/in , , , , /by

At 17, when bilateral tumors took her hearing, Jessica Klersy transformed adversity into strength when she experienced firsthand what it meant to be dismissed, overlooked, and underestimated. Classrooms turned hostile. Professors mocked her. People made assumptions rather than asking questions. But instead of shrinking away, she transformed her pain into purpose. Now as a lawyer, Jessica fights for the people most often silenced—the elderly, the disabled, and the vulnerable—ensuring their voices are heard and dignity protected.

Read more
Gretchen Samuels SammyBaby Fur Babies Transportation

Transforming Pet Care with Heart and Innovation | Gretchen Samuels

/in , , , /by

In the heart of a community where pets are not just animals but family members, Gretchen Samuels stands out as an innovator in pet care, transforming the very nature of how we interact with and care for our animal companions through her unique and comprehensive range of services. Gretchen’s business, Sammybaby Fur Babies Transportation, is not just another pet care service; it’s a one-stop solution for every imaginable pet need, infused with love and personal touch.

Read more
isolated

Social Isolation Linked to Higher Risk of Developing Dementia

/in , /by

A recent study found that the risk of developing dementia is 27% higher among older adults who lack regular social contact and interaction with others.

The study, conducted by researchers from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, was published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. It used data from a group of 5,022 participants aged 65 and older (with an average age of 76) as part of a long-term study titled National Health and Aging Trends.

At the time of the study, the participants were not living in a nursing home, residential care facility or other institution. They were asked to complete a two-hour, in-person interview to assess cognitive function, health status and overall well-being.

Initially, about 23% of the participants were socially isolated but showed no signs of dementia. The other 77% of participants were not considered socially isolated.

According to the study, social isolation is characterized by interacting with others infrequently and having few relationships. The researchers considered if participants lived with others, attended religious services, participated in social events, or discussed “important matters” with two or more people in the past year. Participants who engaged in none of the above were considered socially isolated.

Embed from Getty Images

During the nine years of the study, researchers periodically administered cognitive tests. The study showed that 26% of the participants considered socially isolated developed dementia, compared with 20% of those who were not deemed socially isolated.

In total, 21% of all participants had developed dementia, leading researchers to conclude that the risk of developing dementia over nine years was 27% higher in socially isolated older adults.

“Social isolation among older adults is associated with greater dementia risk. Elucidating the pathway by which social isolation impacts dementia may offer meaningful insights for the development of novel solutions to prevent or ameliorate dementia across diverse racial and ethnic groups.”

Dr. Alison Huang, a senior research associate at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said, “one possible explanation is that having fewer opportunities to socialize with others decreases cognitive engagement as well, potentially contributing to increased risk of dementia.”

Dr. Thomas Cudjoe, an assistant professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins and a senior author of the study, stated  in a news release that “social connections matter for our cognitive health, and it is potentially easily modifiable for older adults without the use of medication.”

Embed from Getty Images

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that around 5.8 million Americans have Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia.  Being socially isolated “has also been linked to poor mental health and emotional well-being in older people.”

Another study that used data from participants in the same National Health and Aging Trends study “found that more than 70% of people age 65 and up who were not socially isolated at their initial appointment had a working cellphone and/or computer, and regularly used email or texting to initiate and respond to others.”

This second study, conducted over four years, found that older adults who used these technologies showed a 31% lower risk for social isolation than other participants. 

Dr. Mfon Umoh, a postdoctoral fellow in geriatric medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said that “basic communications technology is a great tool to combat social isolation.” 

“This study shows that access and use of simple technologies are important factors that protect older adults against social isolation, which is associated with significant health risks. This is encouraging because it means simple interventions may be meaningful.”

Older Woman Getting Covid Vaccine

Nursing Home Residents In The US Are Officially Receiving Their Covid-19 Vaccine’s

/in , /by

Pfizer and BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine has officially begun its initial distribution within the United States this week. Over 50 sites within the nation are expecting to receive their shipments by the end of the week, and while frontline healthcare workers are at the top of the list in terms of vaccination priority, so are vulnerable groups such as nursing home residents, who have been greatly impacted by this pandemic. 

Just days after the initial doses were distributed to the nation’s healthcare workers, nursing homes and other assisted living facilities began receiving their Covid-19 vaccine shipments as well. The US has endured over 306,000 Covid-19-related deaths at this point, and over a third of those deaths came from nursing home residents. 

Embed from Getty Images

Workers in West Virginia and Florida are going to be the first to receive their initial dose of the vaccine, as these areas have been massively impacted by the pandemic. Members of the military are also expected to receive their immunization as the rollouts continue. 

News outlets made sure to be there for the arrival of more than 4,800 Covid-19 vaccine doses at the UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento. Once the vaccines got to the center the vials were immediately put in an extremely cold freezer and taken out in small batches to make that transitional process easier. 

Dr. Nate Kupperman was one of the first to receive his initial dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, a moment that he claimed to be extremely freeing. 

“With this immunization, I now know I will not die from this disease.”

Embed from Getty Images

The initial roll-out has come with its fair share of complications, however, including reports of a “glitch” that impacted certain vials in California and Alabama. The vials arrived too cold for the centers to process, so thousands of potential doses will be replaced to ensure that the vaccine remains effective. 

Other complications include some individuals experiencing allergic reactions to the vaccine. A middle-aged healthcare worker in Alaska with no previous history of allergies had an allergic reaction to the vaccine within 10 minutes of the injection. The Food and Drug Administration issued a statement this week that encouraged individuals with a history of severe allergic reactions/allergies in general to refrain from being vaccinated at this time. 

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert recently claimed that he’s hopeful Americans will take the vaccine when it becomes widely available to the general public. Fauci claimed that if a majority of Americans do receive the vaccine, “we will get a veil or an umbrella of herd immunity over the population that would dramatically diminish the dynamics of the outbreaks.” 

In the meantime, it’s imperative that everyone does their own part in keeping themselves, and their loved ones safe. Stay home as often as possible, wear a facial covering and social distance every time you need to go out.

Biden Gains Momentum In Polls As Key Demographics Switch To Vote Democrat

/in , /by

We’re a little more than a week away from Election Day and Joe Biden’s goal of reaching the White House in 2021 could be dependent on two crucial demographics who’s previous loyalty to Trump led him to his presidency back in 2016.

Read more
Couple Exercising

How Exercise Improves Brain Health

/in , /by

The various benefits of regular exercise on the human body are well-known. But fewer people realize that exercise benefits not just the body, but the mind as well. Indeed, recent studies have revealed that the connection between physical fitness and psychological health runs deeper than previously assumed, both in people with mental illnesses and in psychologically healthy people. Exercise not only improves brain performance in the short term, sharpening memory and information processing, but can also help maintain the health of the brain in the long term by lessening the impact of dementia in old age. While a lifelong routine of exercise is most likely to protect the brain against the worst effects of age-related psychological problems, exercise has also been shown to improve brain function immediately after as few as one workout. As such, when it comes to preserving and improving mental health, physical exercise plays a more substantial role than most of us likely assume.

Embed from Getty Images

Several studies were reported on in 2019 that represent substantial breakthroughs in medical understanding of the relationship between the brain and body. A study published in July, for instance, looked at the performance of semantic memory, or the portion of long-term memory involving ideas and concepts not related to personal experience, in older adults immediately following exercise. It found that after a single session of exercise, regions of the brain associated with semantic memory were more active, though this effect did not apply throughout the entire brain. While scientists used to believe that the human brain was fully formed and fixed by the time a person reaches adulthood, recent evidence has shown that the brain actually remains somewhat malleable throughout life. As semantic memory is often one of the first aspects of brain function to deteriorate with age, these findings give hope to people who are entering old age and are concerned about preserving their brain function through the end of their lives.

The results of this study are supported by other studies that examine how, at a molecular level, exercise changes the brain. Specifically, in a study published in January, scientists found that the hormone irisin may play a key role in preserving brain function, even in people experiencing age-related cognitive impairment. The study involved mice, but nevertheless provides insights about the function of the human brain, as all mammals are fairly genetically similar to one another. Irisin is a hormone that is released during exercise and helps the body metabolize energy while working out, improving the function of the body as well as the brain. It is thought to be involved in the development of Alzheimer’s disease, as the brains of people who did not have Alzheimer’s were found to contain irisin whereas the brains of people with Alzheimer’s had none. In the study, mice that were bred to develop dementia performed better on memory tests after being given a dose of irisin, and mice whose production of irisin was artificially blocked were prone to developing dementia.

Embed from Getty Images

Another study published in 2019 looked at how different forms of exercise affect the brain in different ways. While scientists have determined that aerobic exercise can improve memory and cognition by creating new neurons and reducing inflammation in the brain, less has been determined about the impact of weight training. As such, the researchers in this study developed a weight training program for rats, some of which had been given a substance that causes the development of dementia in animals, to determine whether weight training has the same positive effects on the brain that aerobic exercise does. The scientists found that the rats involved in the weight training program more successfully navigated a maze than those that weren’t, even for the rats with induced cognitive impairment. In fact, an examination of the rats’ brain tissue found that the rats who trained with weights were actually able to restore lost brain function, as their brains reshaped themselves to more closely resemble the brains of healthy rats. The results suggest that all forms of exercise, whether they focus on improving cardiovascular health or muscle mass, may support overall brain health.

While more work certainly has to be done to understand the full extent of the relationship between exercise and brain health, it is abundantly clear that frequent exercise is a key component of a healthy life. Anyone who is physically able to exercise is likely to benefit from a regular workout routine in any number of ways, some of which may not have even been discovered yet.

Senior Couple

Super Immune Cells Found In World’s Oldest People

/in , /by

If you know someone who has defied the laws of time and is now living as a 110 year old or older, scientists may have figured out why these individuals are able to remain alive and normally functioning for so long. The term for someone who lives to 110 years old is known as a “supercentenarian,” according to a research study on these individuals performed by scientists in Japan.

“[Supercentenarians] have higher-than-typical concentrations of a particularly rare type of T helper cell in their blood. These immune cells might protect the oldest of the old against viruses and tumors, leaving them in remarkably fine health throughout their long life spans. The key will be to understand what is [the cells’] their natural target, which may help to reveal what is needed for a healthy, long life,” study co-authors Kosuke Hashimoto, Nobuyoshi Hirose and Piero Carninci wrote in a joint email to Live Science Magazine.

Embed from Getty Images

The three co-authors who wrote and performed this study all are based in Japan. They are the first group of scientists to actually analyze the immune cells of supercentenarians. Life expectancy and longevity rates are generally very high in Japan so it makes sense that this is the location where the study occurred, as it most likely offered the greatest pool of subjects to be involved. However, they all noted that even in Japan, where life expectancy is on average 81 years for men and 87 years for women (based on government statistics) individuals who live to or past 110 years old are quite rare. The same government statistics/census data showed that there are, on average, 61,000 people over the age of 100 living in the country, but only 146 of that 61,000 are 110 or older. 

With such a small pool of individuals to choose from for this study, it obviously made the research difficult. According to the co-authors in the study, they used a group of seven supercentenarians and five control participants to compare and contrast the data. The control participants ranged in age from 50 to 80. The researchers focused on the immune cells in the subjects blood samples. 

“The scientists then used an advanced method called single-cell transcriptomics to find out what each of the immune cells was doing — individually. This method measures the messenger RNA produced by the hundreds of thousands of genes within a cell. Messenger RNA is the go-between that translates the genetic instructions of DNA to the nucleus of the cell, which uses those instructions to build proteins. By essentially reading the messages of the messenger RNA, researchers can determine the activities of each cell, effectively identifying it and its function,” according to Live Science. 

Embed from Getty Images

What they found through this process was quite astounding. Not only did the samples taken from the seven supercentenarians indicate that each subject had more than 40,000 immune cells present in their bloodstream, but compared to the control group, that’s around an average of 20,000 more cells than the younger subjects. The main piece of recorded data that surprised a lot of the researchers, however, was the presence of an immune cell group known as “CD4 CTL.” This grouping is basically a type of helper T cell (the cells in our immune system that attack viruses) that directly attacks and kills other cells almost immediately, according to the study. 

Why this finding is so surprising is because CD4 cells in general are quite rare, and when they are present in our immune systems they don’t really fight other cells, that’s typically just the T cell’s job. These cells normally act like “nerves” for our immune system and simply communicate with other cells when negative foreign bodies have entered the bloodstream, and then they let the T cells do their job and destroy them. However, it’s already been known that these cells have the ability to attack other cells, they just typically don’t. This abundance of immune cell soldiers could lead us to understanding how once an individual passes a certain point in aging that they lead healthy lives until they eventually pass from old age. 

Due to the small sample size of recorded data, the researchers can’t make a concrete connection between these cells and the longevity of life in the subjects, however, it’s a great start. These cells in the past have been proven to kill tumor cells in mice subjects, so it’s a great indication at the possibility of how supercentenarians are even a real thing. For now, the group will continue their research in hopes to unlock more answers about our bodies complex immune systems.