In Brief
By Andy Humm
Not by Pills Alone
Anti-depressants combined with psychotherapy work better in older people than just the psychotherapy alone, a government-financed study has concluded. Results of the research at the University of Pittsburgh were published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
“Past studies have found that anti-depressants alone are no better than placebos in relieving depression in people over 70, who tend to be more vulnerable to the drugs’ side effects, including dizziness,” The New York Times observed. Experts cautioned that people in the study got “state-of-the-art” treatment, which is not always the case in real life.
Age in the Air
Pilots 60 years of age and older – 15 percent of this country’s licensed pilots — account for 24 percent of crashes, according to a study of Federal Aviation Administration records conducted by the Associated Press. Pilots over 50 — 37 percent of the licensed force — account for 56 percent of accidents.
In 2004, the FAA relaxed the medical requirements for a pilot’s license, letting a driver’s license constitute proof of adequate health.
The Guinea Pig Factor
To test the effectiveness of a radical and expensive lung operation for advanced emphysema, Medicare required many of those who wanted the government to pay for the procedure to enroll in 2003 in a clinical trial. Result: No lengthening of life and a 10 percent risk of death from the operation itself. In consequence, only a few hundred people thereafter opted for the procedure at considerable cost savings to Medicare.
“It’s unusual for the system to work so well,” Dr. Steve E. Phurrough, director of Medicare’s coverage and analysis group, told The New York Times, citing the upshot as an example of how the program can test the effectiveness of one procedure or another. The process is now being applied to other drugs and procedures, though there remains some controversy about placing a bloc of patients in a control group.
The Wear and Tear of Care
A 1993 Medicare study of married couples over age 70 verified what had long been supposed, that there was an increased risk of death for surviving partners of those who’ve died.
Now comes word in the New England Journal of Medicine that just taking care of a spouse who requires hospitalization puts the care-giving partner at risk. Men caring for their wives showed a 20 percent higher risk of dying themselves — the same as if their partners had died — and women caring for husbands were at an even higher risk.
Joan Bloom, a public-health professor at the University of California at Berkeley, tells The New York Times that the results suggest “there might be something else besides a loss of social support” – anxiety and exhaustion, for instance — that puts these care-giving spouses at risk during a period when they might have difficulty managing their own health concerns.
Hilary’s for Aging in Place
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) has introduced a Community-Based Choices for Older Americans Act to help those 60 and over to get more assistance when they are ill or disabled at home even if they are above a state’s Medicaid financial-eligibility threshold.
“[T]oo many seniors struggle to afford quality home and community-based care, and as a result are forced into institutional care that they don’t want, adding to the strain on our Medicaid program,” the senator said.
Under the bill, the federal government would provide matching grants to state aging agencies to help develop systems that will allow older people to “age in place in the homes and communities where they have lived for decades.”
Getting Along, Kicking the Habit
A new study out of North Carolina finds that older people who quit smoking are much less likely to return to it than their younger counterparts, and that older women have more success quitting than older men. Tracking participants over three years, researchers found that only 16 percent returned to smoking as opposed to studies on younger people showing 35 to 40 percent resumption smoking after two years.
One of the reasons for quitting among older smokers is diagnosis of a serious smoking-related illness. Other factors include losing access to transportation and therefore less opportunity to purchase tobacco products, dementia, smoking bans in assisted-living facilities, and less income.
The Duke University research was published in the March issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
Visit Papa San, or Else!
Chinese culture has always put a premium on honoring society’s elders, but nowadays the Beijing government is resorting to shaming and fines if children do not keep up the tradition.
The Los Angeles Times reports that in Shanghai, if you don’t go see your aging parents at least three times a month, your name gets posted on a community board. Elsewhere, adult children are assessed the equivalent of a $5 fine if they fail to invite their folks home for Chinese New Year.
On the positive side, the province of Shanxi offers a $60 award to the Model Filial Daughter-in-Law of the Year. The Chinese Person of the Year was a man, Tian Shiguo, who donated one of his kidneys to his mother and did not tell her it was his. “My contribution to my mother does not compare with what she has given me,” he said.
Failure to support older parents can earn a prison sentence in China. In some communities, contracts are being drawn up specifying an adult child’s obligations to his or her parents. Chinese colleges require “morality and parent respect” classes.
Socialize More, Lower Your Blood Pressure
Lonely people are more likely to have high blood pressure, a new study from the University of Chicago has found, and the correlation is higher in older lonely people than younger ones.
Those who saw themselves as lonely had blood- pressure readings, says Inside Bay Area, “as much as 30 points higher” than those who didn’t, and were consequently at higher risk for heart attacks and strokes.
“Their perceptions [of loneliness] were not necessarily related to their particular set of circumstances,” said Louise Hawkley of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience at the University of Chicago. “Somebody could be well-connected and feel lonely. Somebody could be isolated and not feel lonely.”
Ah, yes, sex, sex, sex
New York University’s Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality conducted a panel on “Aging, Sexuality, and Intimacy” in April that included a clip from the film Still Doing It, about “older women who are still discovering parts of their sexuality,” NYU’s Washington Square News reports.
“Sex doesn’t stop when you get older,” according to Regina Shavers, director of the Griot Circle for older gay people, especially those of color. “I was shocked to find people in Griot dating,” she told the paper. “I believed all the myths that nobody finds old people attractive. You could’ve been a four-times-a-week person, now you can be a four-times-a-month person,” she said.
