Loneliness and social isolation can affect health for the worse. A California hospital is training volunteers to provide companionship and friendly assistance.
Lung cancer affects mostly older people, but they're often not offered surgery as a treatment. A study finds that most older people can tolerate surgery, and that it extends lives.
Kerry Egan's job is to help dying people accept their own mortality. It's profoundly sad, but it's also rewarding. "I'm constantly reminded of ... how much love people have for each other," she says.
Hugging a doll can soothe an upset toddler, and some say it can do the same for people with dementia. But critics say this form of therapy infantilizes adults.
When a team of researchers evaluated the scientific literature on brain games, they found little evidence that the products improve memory or thinking in real-world tasks.
Nobody wants to spend the last few decades of their lives in a wheelchair. People in their 70s and 80s recovered more quickly from physical setbacks if they remained active, a study finds.
When men put on a gut and grow love handles it's not such a bad thing, according to a Yale anthropologist. That pudge might help them reproduce and pass on longevity genes to their offspring.
We think of college reunions as a time of fond memories. But as the years pass, those memories increasingly are of friends gone too soon. The lesson now is to learn to meet loss with grace.
A remote mountain village once was home to hundreds. Now it has just 30 residents. Tsukimi Ayano, 67, is one of the younger ones. She has repopulated the village by making scarecrow-like figures.
Cyclist Kristin Armstrong, who won Olympic gold at age 42, is one of many athletes saying that high-level sports aren't just for the young. And scientists say exercise reduces aging's toll for us all.