50Plus.com - The REIT stuff

50Plus.com - The REIT stuff: "The REIT stuff
Article By: Gordon Pape

Real estate investment trusts (REITs) have been exempted from the proposed new income trust tax. Gordon Pape has found a mutual fund that specializes in them.
When Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced his new income trust tax, he allowed for one exception: real estate investment trusts, better known as REITs. He did not offer any rationale for giving REITs a pass, but it appears he was following the U.S. precedent where the sector was also given an exemption when that country cracked down on the trust phenomenon in the 1980s.
Assuming Mr. Flaherty doesn't change his mind later (which is unlikely) this means that income-seeking investors should seriously consider adding a REIT fund to their portfolio. The problem is that the choice is extremely limited, at least right now. That could change in the future, of course."

Macleans.ca | Top Stories | Health | A nasty battle at the old age home

Elder Institutionalism at its worst. Loving care sounds good but how do you deliver it? QJ
Macleans.ca Top Stories Health A nasty battle at the old age home: "A nasty battle at the old age home
How did a small dispute at a respectable seniors' home escalate into this?
JONATHON GATEHOUSE
If pictures tell the story, Gerald Bargman's had a horrible ending. Photos from his final weeks show him propped up in a hospital bed, his arms covered with painful-looking sores, and body so shockingly wizened that you can see each rib, tendon and bone. By the time he died at the age of 63 on July 23, 2005, Bargman's six-foot-two frame had shrunk from 170 to well under 90 lb. He was essentially a skeleton with skin.
The list of ailments that landed him in intensive care at a Toronto hospital is long -- pneumonia, respiratory failure, Crohn's disease, sepsis, an antibiotic-resistant infection -- although it catalogues only a fraction of his medical problems. But it is diagnosis number seven on his final medical report -- malnutrition -- that his loved ones have seized upon. Proof, they say, of their allegation that one of Canada's most respected centres for geriatric care, Baycrest, let a patient starve to death in order to get back at a family that complained too loud, and too often. 'It was due to negligence. It was due to neglect. It was cruel,' says Carol Bargman, Gerald's sister. Depressed and isolated because administrators had restricted his son Allen's visiting privileges following a series of altercations with staff, Gerald Bargman wasted away. And Baycrest, the family alleges, did little to stop it. 'At the end, he looked like he'd just come out of the concentration camps,' says Carol. 'He was like a poster boy for Auschwitz.' "

The End of Medicine: How Silicon Valley (and Naked Mice) Will Reboot Your Doctor by Andy Kessler

Ecellent preview of the future of medicine
The End of Medicine: How Silicon Valley (and Naked Mice) Will Reboot Your Doctor by Andy Kessler: "

The End of Medicine
How Silicon Valley (and Naked Mice) Will Reboot Your Doctor By Andy Kessler

You get sick; you go to your doctor. Too bad. Because medicine isn't an industry, it's practically witchcraft. Despite the growth of big pharma, HMOs, and hospital chains, medicine remains the isolated work of individual doctors—and the system is going broke fast.
So why is Andy Kessler—the man who told you outrageous stories of Wall Street analysts gone bad in Wall Street Meat and tales from inside a hedge fund in Running Money—poking around medicine for the next big wave of technology?
It's because he smells change coming. Heart attacks, strokes, and cancer are a huge chunk of medical spending, yet there's surprisingly little effort to detect disease before it's life threatening. How lame is that—especially since the technology exists today to create computer-generated maps of your heart and colon?
Because it's too expensive—for now. But Silicon Valley has turned computing, telecom, finance, music, and media upside down by taking expensive new technologies and making them ridiculously cheap. So why not the $1.8 trillion health care business, where the easiest way to save money is to stop folks from getting sick in the first place?
Join Kessler's bizarre search for the next big breakthrough as he tries to keep from passing out while following cardiologists around, cracks jokes while reading mammograms, and watches twitching mice get injected with radioactive probes. Looking for a breakthrough, Kessler even selflessly "

winnipegsun.com - Manitoba - NDP stifles choice

The "If you can't beat them in service -buy them out strategy" is bad for freedom of choice. Sad -and with unlimited public funds -a double negative .

winnipegsun.com - Manitoba - NDP stifles choice: "Just when Manitobans were beginning to gain some choice in health care, along comes government's health-care monopoly to gobble up the competition.
The Maples Surgical Centre, a private clinic that had been providing MRIs and pediatric dental surgery to the public for a fee, inked a deal with the Doer government yesterday that will end private access to those services.
Under the $2.3-million deal, Manitobans will no longer be able to purchase MRI scans or pediatric dental surgeries from the clinic. That choice has been bought out by government.
Maples was charging patients $695 per MRI scan but they were delivering the service within 48 hours.
By contrast, hospitals -- under the government monopoly system -- force patients to wait as long as 10 weeks for elective MRIs"

ProActive Rants: Health waste-really discusting

ProActive Rants: Health waste-really discusting

A useful site for thinking people and adults

Adult Message: Communicate and speak to an audience of educated experienced individuals who want to make the most of their lives.

Eons features a fabulous interactive community of members (think MySpace for Grown-ups), plus they have a number of unique and fun features, including the most detailed Longevity Calculator (http://www.eons.com/body) I've ever seen. Designed by Dr. Tom Perls of the Centenarian Study, the Eons calculator is medically sound and personalized, offering the most relevant changes you can make to improve your quality of life. There is always a great deal of focus on exercising our bodies yet we often neglect to sharpen our minds. Eons also offers unique Brain Builder Games (http://fun.eons.com) to help keep your most important muscle in shape and reduce risk of memory loss. You can actually have fun while keeping your mind sharp!

A useful site for thinking people

Adult Message: Communicate and speak to an audience of educated experienced individuals who want to make the most of their lives.

Eons features a fabulous interactive community of members (think MySpace for Grown-ups), plus they have a number of unique and fun features, including the most detailed Longevity Calculator (http://www.eons.com/body) I've ever seen. Designed by Dr. Tom Perls of the Centenarian Study, the Eons calculator is medically sound and personalized, offering the most relevant changes you can make to improve your quality of life. There is always a great deal of focus on exercising our bodies yet we often neglect to sharpen our minds. Eons also offers unique Brain Builder Games (http://fun.eons.com) to help keep your most important muscle in shape and reduce risk of memory loss. You can actually have fun while keeping your mind sharp!

TOO MUCH SALT -BE PROACTIVE

So what can we do to take more control of our own sodium intake? First, read the labels. Total intake per day of sodium should not exceed 2.3 grams, except for African Americans and the elderly, who should only consume 1.5 grams a day. Any food with a half a gram or more in a portion is probably worth avoiding. Second, watch the restaurants. A single meal often contains 4 grams of sodium. And think twice about that free bread on the table – it’s one of the worst offenders.2 Third, remove the salt shaker from your table at home. Why add insult to injury? Fourth, accept a little pain. Studies show we like the taste of salt and weaning ourselves off it will be noticeable at first. But studies also show that adjusting to the change happens quickly and cravings disappear rapidly. Making the small sacrifice is well worth it. Cutting your sodium intake in half can drop your blood pressure 5 points, and that decreases your risk of death from heart disease by 9% and from stroke by 14%.2

Mathmatical Surgery Model?

Study turning surgery into math model
BALTIMORE (UPI) -- Mathematics is being adapted into the "language of surgery" as U.S. researchers develop models to improve operating room skills.

Johns Hopkins University computer scientists are building mathematical models to represent the safe, effective ways to perform surgery, including suturing, dissecting and joining tissue. The project's goal is to develop a way of objectively evaluating surgeons' work to help improve their skills, researchers said in a release.

The project has already showed promise in modeling suture work. Researchers performed suturing aided by a robotic device that recorded the movements and made them available for computer analysis.

Complex surgical tasks occur in a series of steps resembling the way words, sentences and paragraphs are used to convey language, said Gregory Hager, a computer science professor and principal investigator. The procedures were broken down into simple gestures that could correspond mathematically with computer software.

"Surgery is a skilled activity, and it has a structure that can be taught and acquired," Hager said. "We can think of that structure as 'the language of surgery.' To develop mathematical models for this language, we're borrowing techniques from speech recognition technology and applying them to motion recognition and skills assessment."

Health care to cost $148B in 2006: report : National : News : Sympatico / MSN

so are we getting any valie for the money spent? QC

Health care to cost $148B in 2006: report : National : News : Sympatico / MSN: "Health care to cost $148B in 2006: report
05/12/2006 12:27:47 PM



Canadians will spend an estimated $148 billion for health care by the end of 2006, new projections from the Canadian Institute for Health Information show - an increase of $8 billion over last year.


CBC News
But while health-care spending continues to grow in Canada, the pace of that growth appears to be slowing, according to CIHI's annual report on health care spending trends released Tuesday.
The increase this year over 2005 is about 5.8 per cent. Spending grew about 6.4 per cent from 2004 to 2005, and averaged a 7.8 per cent yearly increase from 2000 to 2004.
'For the 10th consecutive year, health care spending continues to outpace inflation and population growth,' said Graham Scott, CIHI chairman, in a release.
Scott suggested the period of growth could be attributed in part to new public money flowing into heath care from agreements between the federal and provincial governments, but noted spending 'now appears to be growing at a slightly slower rate.'
However, spending in the private sector is growing faster in 2006 than it has for three years, the report suggests, increasing by 6.1 per cent to $44 billion. The $104 billion being spent in the public sphere is an increase of 5.3 per cent.
Per capita health care spending is expected to reach $4,548 - a 4.9 per cent increase over 2005.
Health care spending was highest for infants and seniors, consistent with a trend in which 'the beginning and final years of life are the times when people use health care the most"

elder eating disorders

EATING DISORDER COMMON AMONG ELDERLY

When most people hear the word "anorexia" they picture a young, previously healthy woman who has starved herself into a skeletal state. Seldom, if ever, do people think about an eating disorder among the elderly population. But as new research is coming to light, it shows a definite and growing problem in this group.

A full quarter of nursing home residents refuse to eat and are malnourished. The figure is expected to rise in the near future as the homes become more crowded and staffing becomes even more inadequate. Of course there are a number of psychological reasons why nursing home residents refuse to eat, such as difficulty swallowing or various diseases including dementia that render patients disinterested in food and sometimes unable to eat, or they forget to eat.

But there are also a number of people, previously healthy, who for no apparent reason refuse to eat and so they die. Having watched my own grandmother place herself into a state of dementia due to lack of eating when she was unhappily living far from her children and grandchildren, these statistics took on special meaning for me. David Rissmiller, DO, is the chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-School of Osteopathic Medicine in Stratford, New Jersey. He has been working with this population of older adults who give up food to help them overcome their resistance in order to regain their health. When I spoke with him, he told me that these are rational people who had been previously enjoying a good life. Then suddenly something happens and they need to go into a nursing home. For sometimes unexplained reasons, they refuse to eat and this starts a horrible downward cycle. Dr. Rissmiller explained that "passive self-harm from not eating is one of the major risk factors for death in nursing home patients."

When a person rapidly loses 5% of his/her body weight, it begins to affect protein stores... a rapid loss of 10% of body weight can make a person lose the ability to fight infections or heal wounds. One reason the problem of starvation in the elderly has remained hidden is because death certificates do not list the cause as starvation but rather the event that was actually a result of malnutrition. Also malnourished individuals lack the ability to utilize, react appropriately to, and successfully metabolize medications, which makes treatment with conventional means even more difficult. WHO BECOMES ANOREXIC? While many elderly people stop eating because of depression, there is traumatic event that has to do with food. This generally has three aspects to it, he says. It happens in people who tend toward anxiety problems... who are fastidious about their personal habits... and who had a bad reaction to something they ate. Sometimes it is that they choked on a piece of food... other times it was the humiliation they experienced by having an episode of unexpected, uncontrolled vomiting or a sudden onset of fecal incontinence and the resultant mess. At other times they fear a reoccurrence of severe constipation or impaction. Their fear of a repeat event grows and turns into a food phobia, known as sitophobia, that is stronger than their natural impetus to feed their body. If this happens to a person in a nursing home or living on his own, his physical and mental health can deteriorate quickly. Of course this downward failure to thrive frightens family members, but most are frustrated by the fact that there is nothing they can do about it. Sometimes a psychiatrist will misdiagnose depression when the elderly person is really phobic of eating. In such cases, he urges family members to meet with the psychiatrist. He says that often the family can give the history of events that will bring the situation to light because the patient now is either too frightened to remember the incident or too embarrassed to talk about it. Inevitably, he says, once the catalyst event has been identified, the family will recognize that the anorexia started immediately afterward.

OVERCOMING THE FEARS Food phobia is a difficult challenge, says Dr. Rissmiller. It requires reversing patients' nutritional patterns as well as their anxiety about what they perceived as a catastrophic event. In these patients, even the approach of food will be repugnant or cause panic, he adds. It is key at this point for family and staff to take a completely non-judgmental attitude, no tsk-tsking about how the patient "should" be eating. Instead, the patient and his/her doctors should explore the details of the event, including what the patient was eating at the time, where it took place, etc. Doctors should give reassurance that this kind of thing isn't uncommon and there is no need to feel humiliated so they can begin to build positive experiences with food. Working with a nutritionist, they begin to introduce foods that are safe -- the last thing a patient needs at this point is another bad experience -- and so they have him start with ice chips or perhaps a little yogurt (as well as nutritional supplements). Many patients also take low-dose medications that enhance appetite while decreasing anxiety. Dr. Rissmiller has found that about one-third of the sitophobic elderly patients he has worked with resumed eating and recovered their health. Others are more recalcitrant and require further work, but he says that he and his staff continue to explore ways to resolve this problem. The first step, though, remains: to recognize anorexia in a formerly healthy person for what it is.

winnipegsun.com - Editorial - Weak supports for the mentally ill

winnipegsun.com - Editorial - Weak supports for the mentally ill: "Nice theory. It failed.
A report released last week by the Canadian Institute for Health Information produced stats showing not all that much has changed from the old days.
Disturbingly, patients diagnosed with mental illness today account for 30% of all stays in general hospitals.
While only 15% of all patients admitted to hospitals are diagnosed with a mental illness as the primary or secondary problem, their hospitals stays are, on average, more than twice as long as those with other conditions.
Almost four in 10 of these patients (37%) will, after being treated and discharged, be re-admitted to hospital within a year -- well above the 27% rate for other patients.
The cost to society are huge. Eighty-five per cent of people with a mental illness are unemployed. Twenty per cent are addicted to alcohol and/or drugs. And perhaps the greatest tragedy, two-thirds of all people in need of psychiatric treatment never seek it for fear of being stigmatized.
Two things need to change if this revolving-door syndrome is ever to end.
First, we must accept that mental illness is a disease that can strike anyone, not just piously say it.
Second, if we want to end this vicious cycle, politicians must admit that while caring for people in their communities will eventually cost less when they have the proper supports in place, getting there will cost more money not less.
That's because we need to maintain the current hospital system while getting these needed supports in place.
Any competent health minister knows this.
Far too many aren't even talking about it. "

Osprey Media. - Brantford Expositor

Osprey Media. - Brantford Expositor: "Health network hits milestone

Susan Gamble
Local News - Saturday, December 02, 2006 Updated @ 11:41:50 PM

The local health network hit its first milestone this week with the release of a health service plan that outlines strategies for the next three years.

The extensive document sets out the priorities and activities for the network based on hundreds of interviews and meetings with health-care providers and users in this area.

Set up in the spring, the 14 Local Health Integration Networks in Ontario are designed to oversee the lion’s share of the province’s health-care budget.

The network doesn’t provide services but plans and funds services based on the needs of people and providers in each community.

This area is part of the Hamilton Niagara Haldimand Brant LHIN, which has set up offices in Grimsby. The network takes in the entire Niagara peninsula and stretches into Halton, west past Burford, south from St. Williams to Fort Erie and includes all of Hamilton.

The most important part of the plan so far, says the chair of the LHIN board, has been getting out and meeting the public through a series of open houses across the region."

winnipegsun.com - Manitoba - Unhealthy trend

winnipegsun.com - Manitoba - Unhealthy trend: "One of the problems is some provinces still don't keep accurate data on certain wait times. As a result, some provinces -- including Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia -- were not graded in two or three of the five priority areas.
Nevertheless, the report did manage to give out 37 of 50 possible grades. Manitoba was graded in all five areas and overall, we didn't do well.
B.C. scores three A's
By contrast, British Columbia got three A's, one C and an incomplete.
Newfoundland got four A's and an incomplete.
Ontario got an A, one B and three Cs.
Alberta got an A, B, C, D and an incomplete.
And Quebec got two A's, one B and two incompletes.
Only Manitoba, Prince Edward Island and Saskatchewan got Fs in any category.
Meanwhile, the alliance report wasn't the only recent bad news for wait times in Manitoba.
The Fraser Institute's latest report on health care wait times shows the median wait time between seeing a specialist and receiving treatment in Manitoba has grown for the second year in a row to 10.3 weeks.
The median wait time from referral to a specialist and treatment now stands at 18 weeks in Manitoba, slightly above the national average of 17.8 weeks.
It doesn't bode well.
Measuring health-care wait times can be a dodgy game.
Wait times among surgeons in the same city can vary significantly for all kinds of reasons. Hospitals in the same jurisdiction routinely have varying wait times for procedures like MRIs and ultrasounds.
And governments sometimes just don't have good data to accurately measure certain wait times.
However, with the billions we've put into health care over the past few years, you'd think we'd see some signs of significant progress on hospital wait times. But we don"

Getting Organized - Estate Planning

Getting Organized - Estate Planning: "Getting Organized - Estate Planning

What will become of the things you own -- your assets -- when you eventually pass-on? The following list of documents, materials, and instructions will help organize your own thinking and will provide essential information to your survivor(s) or to those who will care for you if you are disabled and unable to act for yourself. There are six broad categories of materials to organize.
Personal Contacts List
This should include, for example, the name, address, and phone number of your spouse, any prior spouse(s), children, relatives, close friends, etc. If you store contact lists electronically, a readily available paper copy should also include your e-mail and other accounts with their passwords.
Professional Contacts
This should include, for example, the name, address, and phone of your lawyer, employer, accountant, insurance agent, broker, etc.
Funeral, Cremation and Burial Arrangements
This should include a clear statement of your wishes for your funeral and burial or cremation. If you have made prior arrangements, have burial insurance, etc. this should also be noted. It is important that your family or other loved ones know what your intentions are with regard to your funeral, burial, or cremation. You should either discuss your wishes with them or tell them where they may find a statement of your wishes at your death. It is not advisable to put the statement of your wishes in your will or safe deposit box because the statement or will may be found too late for your wishes to be honored.
Lists of Assets and Liabilities
This should include, for example, a precise list of all your bank accounts, stock brokerage accounts, insurance policies, "

Health Records of the Future: Why ‘lifespan planning’ may be the best approach

Health Records of the Future: Why ‘lifespan planning’ may be the best approach: "better health care system -- one that permits us to feel connected, supported, and in control of our own health destiny -- two words come to mind: information and planning.
The more information we have about our own health history and genetic profile, the smarter we can be about making health decisions and planning our health future.
This requires a constantly available “record” of our changing health status.
But if you switch doctors or go to a hospital for surgery, you’ll find that our nation’s health records are not even close to this ideal. They are splintered and poorly organized at best.
To their credit, doctors and hospitals have been trying to create a coordinated system of electronic records – but it falls far short of what we need.
The real key to our health information future, one I will describe in just a moment, is a concept called a “Lifespan Planning Record.” This computer-based and integrated model would provide a holistic view of your health – stretching all the way back to your ancestors and projecting far forward into your future – so you will know what you can anticipate as your body ages."

Naturopathic physician

"Naturopathic Physicians Defined
A question I'm often asked by readers is why I interview naturopathic physicians (NDs) for articles instead of 'real doctors.' The short answer is because they have the specialized training to know about things like herbal remedies and nutritional supplementation. But the issue is more complicated. What is clear to me is that there is much confusion about exactly what a naturopathic physician is... what his/her education is... and what role he/she could or should play in the individual's health-care team. To get clarification on the ND's role and practice, I spoke with Jane Guiltinan, ND, president of the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians.
A NATUROPATH'S EDUCATION
In North America, there are five naturopathic medicine programs currently accredited by The Council on Naturopathic Medical Education (CNME), and one naturopathic program that is a candidate for accreditation by the CNME. Candidates for admission must earn a baccalaureate degree (or equivalent) prior to admission, including standard pre-med training. The ND degree is a doctoral degree and typically takes four years to complete, just like an MD.
There are many similarities between the naturopathic and conventional medical school curriculum. The first two years of both curriculums involve basic science courses -- anatomy, pathology, physiology, biochemistry, and other Western medical sciences. In addition, naturopathic philosophy courses expose students to:

The first two years of both curriculums involve basic science courses -- anatomy, pathology, physiology, biochemistry, and other Western medical sciences. In addition, naturopathic philosophy courses expose students to the concepts and principles and practices of natural medicine, said Dr. Guiltinan. These include nutrition, homeopathy, botanical medicine, acupuncture and a variety of mind-body approaches.
During the third and fourth years, there's a mix of classroom courses such as gynecology, pediatrics and rheumatology, plus approximately 1,200 hours of clinical training under the supervision of licensed naturopathic physicians. In this phase of training, naturopathy students observe and help manage patients in an outpatient setting.

THE NATUROPATH'S ROLE
Think of the ND as the equivalent of a family practice physician, said Dr. Guiltinan. Naturopaths provide excellent primary health care for individuals and families. Like the conventional general practitioner with an MD, an ND will assess your health and direct your treatment, either by treating you directly or by referral to other mainstream or natural care specialists such as chiropractors, acupuncturists, nutritionists or specialists in homeopathy, to name a few.
In Dr. Guiltinan's view, conventional physicians and naturopaths are most effective at different points in the spectrum of the health-care system. "At one end of the spectrum is crisis medicine," she says "and it's here where I think conventional medicine is excellent. Emergency care intervention, trauma care, serious infections -- this is where conventional medicine excels."
"Where I think conventional medicine has not done its most effective work is in chronic disease management and in conditions that don't really fit into a clear medical box -- chronic fatigue syndrome, for example, fibromyalgia or depression. With these types of conditions, the conventional, technological or pharmaceutical approach is not always effective as it focuses on symptom suppression, rather than the naturopathic process of finding the underlying causes and addressing these to support healing and the creation of health and wellness. This is where naturopathic physicians can play an important role."
THE ND OFFICE VISIT: WHAT TO EXPECT
What is different about a visit to an ND? At your initial visit you'll be asked about your health history and receive a physical exam that is similar to the physical at a conventional medical office. And like a conventional MD, an ND may order lab tests or diagnostic imaging tests. So, what's different?
"You'll find much more in-depth questioning about your current lifestyle," said Dr. Guiltinan. Naturopaths ask about your diet -- at minimum they will ask you to describe it but more likely you'll be asked to complete a diet diary, detailing your food intake for a week or so. We're also very interested in finding out if you exercise or not, and what your mental and emotional state is.
PHILOSOPHY AND TREATMENT
Dr. Guiltinan said that extensive questioning is necessary to get to the underlying issues around a health problem and address them, rather than just addressing the presenting symptoms of a problem.
Because naturopaths believe that the human body has an incredibly powerful ability to heal itself if given the chance, she said, one principle is to take a look at what the "obstacles to cure" are in an individual patients' life. What are obstacles to cure?
Well, sometimes its genetics, which we can do little about, she said, but some obstacles can be removed (for example, eating poorly, being too stressed out with work, exposure to environmental toxins, lack of exercise). If you can add support in the form of a good diet, proper exercise and stress reduction to promote the healing responses of the body, then you can further capitalize on the body's ability to heal.
In naturopathic medicine, most treatment plans, regardless of the condition, begin with diet modifications. The famous quote from Hippocrates, "Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food" is a basic tenet of naturopathic treatment. In addition, supplements (vitamins and minerals) may be prescribed. In some cases, NDs will do the nutritional counseling themselves... in other instances that require more sophisticated or specialized care, patients may be referred on to a nutrition specialist.
Other common treatment modalities are homeopathy, botanical medicine, physical medicine and acupuncture and mind/body therapies. Again, depending on the patient's needs, the ND may provide treatment himself or refer the patient on to a specialist. NDs also offer psychological counseling. In this area, Dr. Guiltinan said a big part of her naturopathic practice is preparing patients to make the little and big lifestyle changes that will impact their health. In naturopathic medicine, the patient's participation in his/her own health care is crucial.
HOW CAN I FIND A NATUROPATH IN MY AREA?
To find a qualified, licensed ND in your area, visit the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians Web site, naturopathic.org and click "Find a doctor."
So, to all my readers who wonder "why don't I interview 'real doctors'" ... I do. As always"

Retirement Gordon Powers - Sympatico / MSN Finance - Flaherty gives a little back to pensioners

Retirement Gordon Powers - Sympatico / MSN Finance - Flaherty gives a little back to pensioners: "Flaherty gives a little back to pensioners
advertisement

By Gordon Powers
November 14, 2006
While many older Canadians were devastated when Finance Minister Jim Flaherty effectively killed income trusts, they can draw a bit of solace from his decision to introduce income splitting for seniors earning pension income. And, for some seniors at least, this is actually quite a bonus.
Starting in 2007, more than two million pensioners will be able to split income from corporate pension plans, just as they do now with payments from the Canada Pension Plan. Flaherty also promised a $1,000 increase in the age credit to $5,066, starting in 2007.
All this is long overdue, of course. Allowing splitting of CPP payments between spouses in 1978 and spousal RRSPs in 1985 were half measures that unfairly left private pensioners out in the cold. Now he’s created a more level playing field between defined benefit plan members and those who save through RRSPs, as well eliminating some inequity between married couples and those who divorce. "

elderly eating disorders

"Eating Disorder Common Among Elderly
When most people hear the word 'anorexia' they picture a young, previously healthy woman who has starved herself into a skeletal state. Seldom, if ever, do people think about an eating disorder among the elderly population. But as new research is coming to light, it shows a definite and growing problem in this group.
A full quarter of nursing home residents refuse to eat and are malnourished. The figure is expected to rise in the near future as the homes become more crowded and staffing becomes even more inadequate. Of course there are a number of psychological reasons why nursing home residents refuse to eat, such as difficulty swallowing or various diseases including dementia that render patients disinterested in food and sometimes unable to eat, or they forget to eat. But there are also a number of people, previously healthy, who for no apparent reason refuse to eat and so they die. Having watched my own grandmother place herself into a state of dementia due to lack of eating when she was unhappily living far from her children and grandchildren, these statistics took on special meaning for me.

David Rissmiller, DO, is the chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-School of Osteopathic Medicine in Stratford, New Jersey. He has been working with this population of older adults who give up food to help them overcome their resistance in order to regain their health. When I spoke with him, he told me that these are rational people who had been previously enjoying a good life. Then suddenly something happens and they need to go into a nursing home. For sometimes unexplained reasons, they refuse to eat and this starts a horrible downward cycle. Dr. Rissmiller explained that "passive self-harm from not eating is one of the major risk factors for death in nursing home patients."

When a person rapidly loses 5% of his/her body weight, it begins to affect protein stores... a rapid loss of 10% of body weight can make a person lose the ability to fight infections or heal wounds. One reason the problem of starvation in the elderly has remained hidden is because death certificates do not list the cause as starvation but rather the event that was actually a result of malnutrition. Also malnourished individuals lack the ability to utilize, react appropriately to, and successfully metabolize medications, which makes treatment with conventional means even more difficult.

WHO BECOMES ANOREXIC?
While many elderly people stop eating because of depression, there is a sub-group of older anorexics that stop eating because of a traumatic event that has to do with food. This generally has three aspects to it, he says. It happens in people who tend toward anxiety problems... who are fastidious about their personal habits... and who had a bad reaction to something they ate. Sometimes it is that they choked on a piece of food... other times it was the humiliation they experienced by having an episode of unexpected, uncontrolled vomiting or a sudden onset of fecal incontinence and the resultant mess. At other times they fear a reoccurrence of severe constipation or impaction. Their fear of a repeat event grows and turns into a food phobia, known as sitophobia, that is stronger than their natural impetus to feed their body.
If this happens to a person in a nursing home or living on his own, his physical and mental health can deteriorate quickly. Of course this downward failure to thrive frightens family members, but most are frustrated by the fact that there is nothing they can do about it. Sometimes a psychiatrist will misdiagnose depression when the elderly person is really phobic of eating. In such cases, he urges family members to meet with the psychiatrist. He says that often the family can give the history of events that will bring the situation to light because the patient now is either too frightened to remember the incident or too embarrassed to talk about it. Inevitably, he says, once the catalyst event has been identified, the family will recognize that the anorexia started immediately afterward.

OVERCOMING THE FEARS
Food phobia is a difficult challenge, says Dr. Rissmiller. It requires reversing patients' nutritional patterns as well as their anxiety about what they perceived as a catastrophic event. In these patients, even the approach of food will be repugnant or cause panic, he adds. It is key at this point for family and staff to take a completely non-judgmental attitude, no tsk-tsking about how the patient "should" be eating. Instead, the patient and his/her doctors should explore the details of the event, including what the patient was eating at the time, where it took place, etc. Doctors should give reassurance that this kind of thing isn't uncommon and there is no need to feel humiliated so they can begin to build positive experiences with food. Working with a nutritionist, they begin to introduce foods that are safe -- the last thing a patient needs at this point is another bad experience -- and so they have him start with ice chips or perhaps a little yogurt (as well as nutritional supplements). Many patients also take low-dose medications that enhance appetite while decreasing anxiety.

Dr. Rissmiller has found that about one-third of the sitophobic elderly patients he has worked with resumed eating and recovered their health. Others are more recalcitrant and require further work, but he says that he and his staff continue to explore ways to resolve this problem. The first step, though, remains: to recognize anorexia in a formerly healthy person for what it is and treat it accordingly. This is true whether the patient is 25 or 75.

50Plus.com - Scientists test anti-aging drugs

50Plus.com - Scientists test anti-aging drugs: "Scientists test anti-aging drugs
Article By: Cynthia Ross Cravit

Beam me aboard Scottie. A pill that can significantly extend your lifespan? Researchers in Massachusetts are testing this very thing, specifically drugs that mimic a substance in red wine called resveratrol that is believed to retard aging.
Red wine has been in the news recently for reducing the risk of heart attack, stroke, cancer and even obesity. Now some scientists are saying the wine extract known as resveratrol just might turn out to be the Holy Grail of anti-aging."