Hands to Help Seniors

After three decades of experimentation, researchers have finally found a treatment that dramatically improves the outlook for stroke victims that have the most debilitating type of strokes.  They have found that by directly removing large blood clots in the brain, they can save brain tissue that would have otherwise died, allowing the patient to live a normal life.  Many in the medical community are elated about the study which was just published in The New England Journal of Medicine because the procedure is relatively simple.  A small type of snare is placed on the end of a catheter that is inserted in the groin and then threaded through an artery to the brain.  When it reaches the clot, the device is opened and pushed into the clot.  The doctor then grabs the clot and pulls out the device with the clot attached.  Smaller clots can be dissolved with the drug tPA.  This is a remarkable breakthrough and could save many lives not to mention helping those who would otherwise be living the rest of their life with a terrible disability.

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The Obama Administration has strengthened the authority of Medicare in order to give them the ability to kick doctors and other medical providers out of the system for abusive billing practices.  This should have happened sooner.  The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimated that for the fiscal year ending September 30, Medicare issued $45.8 billion in improper payments, about 13% of total spending.  That’s a ridiculous amount of money to go out the door improperly.  The new rules will allow Medicare to immediately revoke the billing privileges of any doctor, medical-equipment supplier or other health-service provider which demonstrates a pattern of billing inappropriately.

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You may have been reading a lot recently about so-called wireless wearables and wondering what the heck they are and why you should care.  There are a lot of technological advances being made that will impact seniors and as just one example The Wall Street Journal recently wrote an interesting piece on something which can help aid your hearing.  Many people refuse to wear a hearing aide despite admitting they have a serious hearing problem.  It’s typically due to their perception that they are expensive and ugly.  If you fall into that category, you might try the new “Soundhawk Smart Listening System.”  It’s not a medical device, rather, it’s an app-controlled device which has an earpiece and microphone and costs only $300.  One of the founders of the company that makes it is Rodney Perkins, the founder of the California Ear Institute at Stanford as well as a number of other medical companies.  One person who tested it said she and her husband had stopped going out to their favorite restaurant because the high ceilings made it too noisy to hear.  When she used the Soundhawk, which points outwards so directly captures the conversation from the person sitting across from you, she had a lovely conversation with her husband and she said she will be returning to their favorite restaurant again soon.

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Consumers have done a good job trying to avoid trans fat after a number of research projects have linked them to higher risk of heart disease, strokes and other serious health problems.  However, researchers have found that labeling on a lot of commonly used products may be misleading.  A study which was published in the Journal Preventing Chronic Disease looked at 4,340 packaged foods and found that of the nearly 400 products that listed in the ingredients “partially hydrogenated oils,” the main dietary source of trans fat, only 15% reported that there was trans fat in the product on their labels.  The other 84% of products listed zero grams of trans fat on the label.  Current guidelines from the Food & Drug Administration allow food producers to list zero grams of trans fat on the label if the product contains less than 0.5 grams per serving.  Therefore, you need to be suspicious of any products that list partially hydrogenated oils on the label.

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We all know that fish is a healthy food to eat.  But a new study, which was published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, found that there is an additional benefit: it could help prevent hearing loss.  Researchers studied records from more than 65K female nurses over an 18 year period.  They found that, compared with women wo ate fish less than once per month, those eating fish at least twice per week had a 20 percent lower risk of hearing loss, even after accounting for the fact that women who eat more fish may have healthier diets and lifestyles.  All fish, even canned tuna and shellfish, helped the women have a lower risk of hearing loss.  Researchers believe that the omega-3 fatty acids in fish may improve blood flow within the ear, just like they do in other parts of the body.

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