A project supported by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Aging (grant U19AG063893) called “Long Life Family Study” has gathered some interesting data that was published in Medicalxpress.com this month. Their website also has a lot of interesting information, a definite read for those of us caring for elders! In response to a request for applications from the …
“Bacterial colonization and secondary infection have been described in patients hospitalized with COVID-19. At University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, MD.. since early April 2020, critically ill COVID-19 patients had been housed in 3 dedicated units which included 2 intensive care units (ICUs) and 1 intermediate care unit. Units were designed as closed, negative-pressure areas where staff remained in …
On June 10,th, 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Health Alert Network issued a health advisory for parts of the southern United States. Please read the below excerpt for a brief summary, and view the entire advisory at the link at the bottom of this page. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is issuing …
In a study published in JAMA Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, 89% of the SARS-CoV-2-positive, mildly symptomatic patients who had a sudden onset of altered sense of smell or taste, experienced a complete resolution or improvement of these symptoms. Persistent loss of smell or taste was not associated with persistent SARS-CoV-2 infection. At 4 weeks from the initial survey of mildly …
Many of us suffer from insomnia on the best of days but with the pandemic, many suffer from COVID sleep deprivation. You know that feeling, you lay in bed and your mind is racing a thousand miles an hour, doom is hovering overhead right? Well if this describes you, you will be unhappy to know that most humans spend one-third …
An article published on MIT Medical asks the question, “is all this social distancing weakening our immune systems?” According to MIT, the answer is NO, that this is NOT the way our immune system works. The idea that individuals who are exposed to a variety of microbes (i.e., germs) in childhood build better immunity is likely to be true! In …
“We are learning more about the risk factors for severe COVID-19 outcomes every day. Age is the strongest risk factor for severe COVID-19 outcomes. Approximately 54.1 million people aged 65 years or older reside in the United States; this age group accounts for more than 80% of U.S. COVID-19 related deaths. Residents of long-term care facilities make up less than …
According to a recent study published in the Lancet, there is a crisis in the under-treatment of osteoporosis with a decline in the prescribing of oral and intravenous bisphosphonates in the United States. The rates of initiation of osteoporosis medication within 6 months of hospitalization for hip fracture have declined over the past 15 years from 10 to 3%. In …
A recent JAMA article discusses how delirium emerged as a well-recognized complication of COVID-19, with particular importance due to its high prevalence and mortality. Unfortunately, early signs of delirium (also referred to as acute brain failure) are often “missed”. During the COVID-19 pandemic, reversible contributors to delirium must be addressed and approaches for delirium prevention and management can be built …
On March 11, 2021, President Joe Biden signed into law the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, which included $250 million allocated Medicare and Medicaid funding for the implementation of nursing home strike teams. AMDA – The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine sent a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services on June 11, 2021, urging …
