Aging

A U.S. attorney has sued two nursing homes in Watsonville, Calif., alleging that they failed to provide the acceptable care they were paid for by the government.

 

    

SciWorks Radio is a production of 88.5 WFDD and SciWorks, the Science Center and Environmental Park of Forsyth County, located in Winston-Salem.

The process of aging affects everyone, whether it be ourselves or the people we love. Some of us age in good health, while others can succumb to a variety of health problems, the most frightening of which can be the loss of brain function. This week, we speak with Dr. Stephen Kritchevsky, the Director of the Sticht Center on Aging at the Wake Forest School of Medicine, here in Winston Salem, where research is being done to understand and counter the effects of the aging process.

Scientists have found that a hormone associated with long life also seems to make people smarter. The gene strengthens the connections between brain cells, a process that's essential for learning.

Dr. Molina will be speaking about Bioenergetics and Healthy Aging at the next Science Cafe, hosted by the River Ridge Taphouse in Clemmons. This free event is on April 8th and is sponsored by SciWorks and Reynolda Gardens. Click here for more details.

The fountain of youth has been an unattainable part of the human ethos for a long, long time. Who wouldn't want to stay young forever? That may never be a reality, but something like it may.

The work we do at the Sticht center of aging isn't really about extending life-span, but extending something that people have been calling health-span. We're adding life to years instead of adding years to life.

Patients fall in just a small fraction of hospital visits. But safety experts say bad falls should be called "never events" and shouldn't ever happen inside hospitals. There's a difference of opinion over the best way to reduce hazardous falls.

As people around the world live longer, many nations are having to find new ways to care for their aging populations. In China, a new law requires adult offspring to visit and look after their elderly parents. China's one-child policy complicates the issue further, and some dismiss the law as another attempt to legislate morality by a government that is riddled with corruption.

The aging brain may be more flexible than we thought, a study of older adults now suggests. After playing a racing car video game an hour a day, thrice weekly for a month, adults age 60 and over were better at multitasking than untrained 20-year-olds.

Law enforcement agencies are reporting an increase in health insurance scams across the country. Many of the scammers seem to be preying on the public's confusion over the massive changes taking place in the nation's health care system.

"What's good for the heart is good for the brain," one neuroscientist says. In addition to physical exercise, researchers say mental exercise, socializing and a good diet can help preserve memory.

Research into why some people have strong memory well into old age suggests that their brains are different from their peers. Some parts of the brains of "superagers" responsible for attention, thinking and memory seem to be spared the typical age-related shrinkage.