A study in JAMA Network Open found that older adults are more likely to have complications after their first colonoscopy, and tend to suffer from other, underlying chronic health conditions, reports United Press International . The researchers reviewed data from more than 38,000 people who had colonoscopies between 2008 and 2017. Slightly more than 73 percent underwent their first colonoscopies, and 3.4 percent experienced complications within 30 days of their colonoscopy. That number rose to 6.8 percent among adults 75 and older. Anemic subjects were 40 percent more likely to have post-colonoscopy complications, while those with high blood pressure were 20 percent more likely. Moreover, subjects with an irregular heartbeat were 70 percent more likely to experience complications, and those with chronic kidney disease were 80 percent more likely. In addition, people with congestive heart failure and a history of smoking were more than three times more likely to have colonoscopy complications. Those with liver disease or obesity were nearly five times and more than twice as likely to suffer complications, respectively.

Georgia's House of Representatives on Wednesday unanimously adopted Senate-endorsed legislation to improve staffing, training, and accountability in the state's senior care communities, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution . The bill now goes to Gov. Brian Kemp for signing. The Senate version added requirements for managing COVID-19, and Kemp has said he strongly backs the measure. Under the bill, memory care units would need to attain certification and boost staff, directors would require licensing, and violators would face bigger fines. Moreover, assisted-living communities would be obligated to report financial problems to residents and families. In addition, senior care communities must plan for a pandemic, have a short-term inventory of personal protective equipment, test residents and staff for the virus, and alert residents and families of an outbreak. The bulk of the legislation applies to assisted living and personal care communities with 25 beds or more, but the COVID-19 rules also would be applicable to Georgia's nursing communities.

New York City agencies began to distribute 10,000 Internet-connected tablets to senior residents earlier this month to close the digital divide, reports StateTech Magazine . The Mayor's Office of the Chief Technology Officer (CTO), in collaboration with the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), started sending out free LG tablets, initially for seniors living in buildings run by the NYCHA in Brownsville, East New York, Mott Haven, Red Hook, Bushwick, and Coney Island. The city also is supplying 12 months of free technology training and digital literacy education for residents receiving the tablets. The CTO's office has partnered with the city's senior citizen services and wireless carrier T-Mobile to distribute the tablets. This move is part of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's Internet Master Plan, which aims to address the fact that 40 percent of city households lack home or mobile broadband, including 18 percent of residents who are without both. "In recent weeks, we've worked . . . to ensure that older adults have access to the information, critical services, and online support they need so that they can stay safer by staying home," said New York City CTO John Paul Farmer. New York City has pledged $5 million to provide technology to older residents, mainly in lower-income and poorly connected neighborhoods. Farmer said the effort to close the digital divide "will ensure that everybody has high-speed, high-quality, privacy-respecting broadband at home and on the go so they can fully participate in daily life in New York City."

Close to six out of 10 workers around the world would like a phased transition — a gradual shift from full-time work into part-time or freelancing — as they enter retirement, according to a survey from the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies cited by CNBC News . The institute, along with the Aegon Center for Longevity and Retirement, polled a global sample of 16,000 workers and retirees for its results. As much as workers would like to gradually step away from the workplace, though, few employers offer such a program. Only about a third of employees said their employers offer a "phased retirement" option, the survey found. "Many employers are running lean and mean," said Catherine Collinson, CEO and president of nonprofit Transamerica Institute. "They may be missing an opportunity to open up these flexible transitions into retirement."

California, Texas, and Florida — the three most populous U.S. states — have seen record numbers of new coronavirus cases in a single day this week, reports CNN . California reported 7,149 new cases and Florida 5,511 on Tuesday, while Texas disclosed 5,551 cases on Wednesday. Those three states constitute 27.4 percent of the U.S. population, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau estimates. Data from Johns Hopkins University indicates that at least 26 states are seeing an increase in coronavirus cases compared to the previous week. The University of Minnesota's Michael Osterholm said these higher infection rates are not solely attributable to increased testing for COVID-19. Meanwhile, experts are concerned that even states seeing temporary declines could begin to re-experience dangerous spikes as they start reopening. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention forecasts that 130,000 to 150,000 Americans will likely die from coronavirus infections by July 18.

Coronavirus cases are soaring among young adults in states where bars, stores, and restaurants have reopened, which jeopardizes the health of older people they come in contact with, reports the Associated Press . Houston Methodist Hospital's Rob Phillips said younger people with COVID-19 are sick, but not sick enough to require intensive care; yet this is a troubling trend because young people "definitely interact with their parents and grandparents." In late March and April, the highest positive testing rates were in people over 65, but for the past month about 7 percent of tests on 18- to 49-year-olds nationwide have been positive — an approximately 2 percent gain over older age brackets. People aged 15 to 34 now make up 31 percent of all virus cases in Florida, up from 25 percent in early June. Last week, over 8,000 new cases were reported in that age group, versus roughly 2,000 among people 55 to 64. Although older adults were more likely to be diagnosed with the virus in past months, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that almost as soon as states started reopening, the 18-to-49 demographic quickly became the age bracket most likely to test positive.

A collaborative research center in Seattle, Wash., has been founded to build high-resolution maps of Alzheimer's disease and identify how subjects' brain cells differ from those of healthy people, reports the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin . The center is funded by the U.S. National Institute on Aging, with additional projects based at University of Washington School of Medicine and Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute. Their work will be based on techniques developed at the Allen Institute and elsewhere through the National Institutes of Health-funded BRAIN Initiative. The scientists hope to make progress into the root causes of Alzheimer's disease, as well as establish a foundational data resource to effect treatments of other neurodegenerative disorders. The researchers will employ single-cell technologies originally developed via genomics research to define brain cell types by the complete set of genes the cells actively use, with the goal of identifying how specific cell types and their genes are impacted as Alzheimer's disease progresses. The center also could discover new insights into both people with a natural resistance to developing amyloid plaques and those who develop the plaques but never develop dementia.

The Georgia Senate has advanced additional rules for reporting COVID-19 infections in nursing and assisted-living communities, giving a welcome boost to legislation for senior care in the state, reports the Rome News-Tribune . The measure would fortify training for staff in senior-care communities and enlarge the number of staff to be on site at any given time to monitor residents — in addition to raising fines for violations or if a community causes a resident's death. Senate lawmakers have modified the bill to add extra requirements for communities to publicly disclose when residents or staff test positive for the coronavirus. They also would have to stock a week's worth of protective supplies like masks and gowns and have every resident and staffer tested within 90 days of the legislation's enactment. The bill would require at least one direct-care staff member for every 15 senior residents during waking hours, and one for every 20 residents at nighttime. The bill also seeks to tighten staffing and training standards for memory care centers.

Employers are rethinking how they hire, trying out everything from remote onboarding to curbside job fairs in order to reduce risks, observes the Wall Street Journal . Private surveys show a pent-up demand to hire. ManpowerGroup recently reported that 60 percent of businesses it polled expect to return to pre-pandemic hiring levels before the end of December. "As states reopen," the newspaper states, "employers are bracing for what they expect will be floods of applicants as they staff back up." Preparations for restaffing show both legal and organizational hurdles, from interviewing candidates via video to rethinking staff sizes — issues that come on top of workplace-safety strategies aimed at minimizing the spread of the coronavirus, such as installing plexiglass between workstations.

A study in the International Journal of Epidemiology found that above average belly fat in older women can result in a 39 percent increased risk of dementia within 15 years compared with those who have a normal waist circumference, reports CNN . For men and women over 50, the dementia risk is 28 percent when accounting for both body mass index and waist circumference. "As belly size gets larger, the memory center in the brain gets smaller, based on prior studies," said Weill Cornell Medicine's Richard Isaacson. "This new study . . . supports these findings and relates a larger waist size to increased dementia risk, especially in women." Researchers looked at 6,582 subjects 50 or older, measuring their height, weight, and waist circumference and following up with them an average of 11 years. Persons who developed dementia were an average of 71.8 years old at the time of their baseline assessment, and those without dementia had a mean age of 61.9 years old when they entered the study. There could be a direct link between dementia and hormones derived from fat cells, or body fat could be involved in metabolic and vascular pathways associated with the accumulation of amyloid proteins or brain lesions.