Sorted by date Results 1306 - 1330 of 2084
High egg diet may be beneficial A diet that includes a lot of eggs may be packed with nutrients and not elevate your risk for heart disease. At least that is the latest findings from researchers at the University of Sydney. They have just published a study showing that eating up to 12 eggs per week for a year did not increase cardiovascular risk factors in people with pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes. Published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the research extends on a previous...
About eyes. Contrary to popular belief, some people can keep their eyes open when they sneeze. Also, green is the rarest eye color to have. About that trick knee. Some of you have a trick knee (or shoulder) that can predict weather. Basically, you can tell when bad weather or a storm is coming with one of your bum joints. As the barometric or atmospheric pressure drops (before a storm), tissues in joints expand a little bit, and your knee or shoulder may feel it and alert you by experiencing pain. About spinach. Some nutritionists still...
Drug prices in the United States are too high – nearly everyone agrees. But political consensus stops at how to lower prices and fix the problem. If it were easy, a simple solution would be found. But paying for prescription drugs is a complicated web of prices, incentives, rebates and discounts among the drug companies, insurance companies and the pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) who are the middlemen who negotiate with the drug companies on behalf of insurance companies. Think of solving the drug prices mess like a complex jigsaw puzzle. J...
Our household recently replaced a bathroom vanity cabinet, something long overdue. The process revealed something else long overdue – bottle after bottle of expired, unused, leftover prescription medications. They were in drawers, travel kits, on shelves. Inventorying them was like looking through years of health records, remembering this or that injury, infection, condition, you name it. Besides pills, there were prescription-strength inhalers, skin creams, syrups. Not something that should be lying around and yet there it all was, much m...
In partnership with the Alaska Forget Me Not Coalition, the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs holds an annual Mental Health Summit with the goal of improving collaboration with community partners to address the mental health needs of veterans. This year’s summit, the 6th annual, takes place June 26 in Anchorage at the Southcentral Foundation Nuka Wellness and Training Center, 4085 Tudor Center Drive, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Participation is free and there are also free CME continuing education credits available. Community-based providers of s...
If you receive Social Security and/or Medicare, make sure you inform the Social Security Administration (SSA) when you move. That’s especially important now while the SSA is mailing out new Medicare cards. Even though the Internet is a virtual playground for scam artists, snail mail is still vulnerable to thieves. They’ve been known to file a change of address notice with the local U.S. Post Office, to snag your personal information, checks, and to keep you from finding out that they’ve opened accounts in your name. It’s not as easy as it used...
Dear Savvy Senior: A good friend of mine got a bad case of shingles last year and has been urging me to get vaccinated. Should I? -- Suspicious Susan Dear Susan: Yes! If you’re 50 or older, there’s a new shingles vaccine on the market that’s far superior to the older vaccine, so now is a great time to get inoculated. Here’s what you should know. Shingles, also known as herpes zoster, is a burning, blistering, often excruciating skin rash that affects around 1 million Americans each year. The same virus that causes chickenpox causes shingle...
Medicare Summary Notices (MSNs) are a great tool for beneficiaries and I highly recommend learning how to read them. They may appear a bit intimidating at the outset, but once you learn how to review them, they can be very helpful in understanding how your medical claims have been processed and how much you may owe after your insurance has paid their part. Additionally, these documents are invaluable in helping beneficiaries catch any errors, abuse or fraud. Let’s walk through the MSN t...
We are in our final month of a very active spring 2018 health fair season; so if you haven’t made it to an event yet, head on over to one of the last spring events available. Make it to one of these final spring events in your local community before the end of the season and you’ll find a variety of resources to help meet your family’s health needs and take time to enjoy some great community gatherings. Alaska Health Fair events offer free health screenings, health and safety education, plus 11 affordable blood tests (starting at $20) along wit...
I do not waste food and am chagrined watching my daughter’s family throw out expensive organic fruit and vegetables forgotten in the back of their refrigerator. Today, I tossed $4 worth of my favorite low fat organic yogurt because I noticed clumps of green mold floating on the surface. In spite of the mold, I would have eaten the yogurt, having carefully spooned out visible green fuzz, rinsed it the down the sink, then poured the remainder through a strainer, discarding many smaller green colonies. At the point of returning the yogurt to t...
In partnership with the State of Alaska, Dept. of Health and Social Services, the Seward, Kenai and Fairbanks senior centers sponsored educational workshops to "train the trainer" in Tai Chi For Arthritis and Falls Prevention, during a two day intensive workshop, certifying 15 new instructors in the state of Alaska. These instructors are committed to teaching in their local area communities, between Fairbanks and Juneau, and all the way to the western shore of Homer. Tai Chi for Arthritis and Fa...
Hidden brain benefits found in older adults A new study for the first time is suggesting that healthy older men and women can generate just as many new brain cells as younger people. There has been controversy over whether adult humans grow new neurons, and some research has previously suggested that the adult brain was hardwired and that adults did not grow new neurons. However, that does not seem to be the case. A study just published in the journal Cell Stem Cell, suggests that many older adu...
The Kenai Peninsula Family Caregiver Support Program will hold the following peer support meetings in May. This month’s focus is part two of a presentation on basic spiritual needs throughout life, what may or may not change when someone is living with dementia, and how to best meet those needs. Resource materials include a DVD presentation by dementia expert Teepa Snow and the Rev. Linn Possell. May 1, Caregiver support meeting at Sterling Senior Center, 1 p.m. May 8, Caregiver support meeting at Soldotna Senior Center, 1 p.m. May 15, C...
Lawmakers defend the federal budget, passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump at the end of March, by repeating a quotation attributed to Otto von Bismarck: "If you like laws and sausages, you should never watch either one being made." In other words, the legislative process can be messy and extremely unappetizing, but it usually produces results. This budget bill to fund the government through Sept. 30, 2018, will be remembered as much for what's not in it as for what is. (An extensive list of wins and woes for seniors appears...
It was 45 years ago this month that I married Gary in the front yard of my home in Glennallen. As the wedding party stood and all the guests sat facing toward the grove of poplar trees, frogs croaked and ducks swam in the pond off to one side. In other years the trees were leafed out and the grass was green, but that year spring was slow. But, I didn't care. I wanted to get married in May and the 26th was the last Saturday of the month. At times during the preceding months, when preparing for a...
For years, I kept a blog with updates about my family. School events, vacations, celebrations were written up and posted to the blog, along with lots of photos. The blog was a more convenient way to share with family and friends in the Lower 48 than putting together letters home. And the service was free. Over time, I bonded with the blog; it became a family diary. I enjoyed browsing back through the entries, seeing pictures of children as they grew up, remembering funny adventures, seeing the home renovations and transformations. Then along...
Adult guardianship cases are kind of a big deal. And sometimes, they’re difficult. On one side you have the Respondent. This is typically someone who has some kind of dementia, mental health issue, or medical issue which renders them unable to handle their own affairs. Oftentimes they are in danger of losing such essentials as housing, public benefits, or life savings, if someone doesn’t step in and help out. On the other side you have the Petitioner. This is typically a family member or fri...
In January I was scheduled to travel away from my home in cold, dark Anchorage to the warm, bright beaches of the Turks and Caicos. It was a sanctuary vacation I had been looking forward to for months, and I gleefully packed swimsuits and sandals in anticipation. I also managed to ignore a nagging tickle in the back of my throat, assuring myself that it would certainly go away in the tropical air. A week later I was bedridden with the worst virus I had ever experienced. Feverish, unable to...
Prisons in the United States contain an ever growing number of aging men and women who cannot readily climb stairs, haul themselves to the top bunk, or walk long distances to meals or the pill line; whose old bones suffer from thin mattresses and winter’s cold; who need wheelchairs, walkers, canes, portable oxygen, and hearing aids; who cannot get dressed, go to the bathroom, or bathe without help; and who are incontinent, forgetful, suffering chronic illnesses, extremely ill, and dying. [Human Rights Watch, Old Behind Bars, 2012] Elderly i...
Recently I needed some medical records sent from my previous doctor to a new specialist. I was stunned when this thoroughly modern medical practice told me the only way they could send them quickly was with a fax machine. When was the last time you used a fax machine? 1990s technology in 2018? Efforts to develop a standardized electronic health record (EHR) system to make it easier for the sharing of your medical records between doctors have been planned since that fax machine was the latest technology invention, but only with limited success....
Approximately 1 in 10 Americans age 60 and older have experienced some form of elder abuse. Broadly defined, elder abuse is any form of mistreatment that results in harm or loss to an older person. More specifically, the World Health Organization defines elder abuse as “a single, or repeated act, or lack of appropriate action, occurring within any relationship where there is an expectation of trust, which causes harm or distress to an older person.” The legal definition of elder abuse varies from state-to-state. Elder abuse affects people fro...
Donated Dental Services (DDS), a Dental Lifeline program, provides free dental services for qualifying seniors and those with disabilities in the Fairbanks and North Pole area. In order to be eligible, the patient must have exhausted all other insurance resources and be able to provide documentation for lack of adequate funds, said Sue Lear, DDS Coordinator. “Dental insurance through Medicaid must be used first,” said Lear. “Although this is a last resort program, as the dentists are all working on a volunteer basis, our goal is to help as ma...
Your new Medicare ID card will be arriving the old-fashioned way, via the US Postal Service. If you barely glance at your mail before you throw it in the garbage because of a deluge of junk mail, be on the lookout for this one. Starting in April and continuing for a year, Medicare will be sending out new ID cards to its 55 million beneficiaries. This will be the first replacement of the cards since Medicare started in 1965. The cards have only one purpose – to help prevent identity fraud. The old cards will be valid for another year, but h...
Did you know that if you have Medicare Part B you are eligible to receive a large number of preventive services that will cost you nothing? Medicare’s goal in offering these preventive screenings is to find health problems early when treatment works best. Under Medicare Part B, preventive services are part of your benefits and you will pay no co-payment if you get the services from a provider (doctor, other provider, or supplier) who takes assignment. Taking assignment means that this provider h...
