A survey published in Annals of Internal Medicine found over 40 percent of older Americans said they used online ratings or reviews when choosing their doctor, reports Healio . The researchers analyzed answers from 2,256 Americans aged 50 to 80 years, mostly female and white. The results indicated that 42.9 percent said they had acquired online ratings or reviews for a physician when choosing one for themselves. More women than men opted for this process, as did subjects with at least one chronic medical condition, and those with at least some college education or higher compared with those with a high school education or less. Meanwhile, the criteria older adults deemed "very important" when choosing a doctor included whether they took their health insurance and whether they were the same race/ethnicity as them. Online physician ratings and reviews were considered almost as valuable as verbal recommendations, and were thought to be "very important" more often among racial/ethnic minorities and less often among respondents with at least a bachelor's degree. "There is often a perception that online information sources are more used by, and useful to, younger patients, but our results suggest that many older patients are engaging with this information too," said University of Michigan Professor Jeffrey T. Kullgren.

WBIW-AM reports that Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb has signed into law a bill mandating that the Indiana Family & Social Services Administration Division of Aging draft a strategic dementia plan. "It is a declaration that at last, we are taking this disease seriously," declared Rep. Gregory Porter (D), who authored the bill. "To the hundred thousand Hoosiers like my mother who face dementia every day, and to the loyal caregivers who stand by them — we are with you and we are for you because we are you." Indiana is one of the few U.S. states currently lacking a dementia plan, which will help healthcare providers and organizations coordinate care statewide. A plan should also help Indiana obtain federal funding through the Building Our Largest Dementia Infrastructure Act. The bill's advocates include the Indiana Association of Area Agencies on Aging, CICOA Aging and In-Home Solutions, Dementia Friends Indiana, the Indiana Health Care Association, and the Indiana Center for Assisted Living. "The COVID-19 pandemic has hit Hoosiers living with dementia and their caregivers especially hard, exposing gaps in the system that left them especially vulnerable," said Natalie Sutton with the Alzheimer's Association Greater Indiana Chapter. "This legislation is a crucial step to making Indiana a more dementia-capable state."

With Philadelphia about to expand COVID-19 vaccine eligibility to the entire adult population, many of the city's seniors remain unvaccinated, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer . Roughly 37 percent of Philadelphians 65 and older have been fully inoculated, according to the city's Department of Public Health. Forty-eight percent of Philadelphians 75 and older have received at least a first vaccine dose, indicating the city trails the rest of Pennsylvania, which has 47 percent fully vaccinated. James Garrow with the city's Department of Public Health said the city is asking all vaccine providers to prioritize people 65 and older, even after eligibility is extended. A scarcity of easily accessible sites and Internet access has made it difficult for some seniors to book vaccine appointments. Many also are homeowners and may lack access to resources and support networks available in senior housing, assisted living communities, or apartment communities. Low income levels are another factor, while city officials admitted that seniors living alone complicated immunization efforts. White Philadelphians 65 and older represent nearly 57 percent of fully vaccinated people in that age group, yet less than a third of the city's Black population have been fully vaccinated despite constituting almost 42 percent of Philadelphia's senior populace.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that the U.K. variant of the coronavirus is now the dominant strain in the United States, according to NBC News . The spread of the variant, which is more infectious, compounds worries that the country may about to experience another surge. The CDC predicted back in January that the U.K. variant could become dominant in the U.S. by March, with the agency forecasting "rapid growth" in the coming months. Both COVID-19 case numbers and hospitalizations are rising, even as the nation immunizes an average of nearly 3 million people per day. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said some recent clusters of cases have been connected to day care centers and youth sports, adding that the increase appears to be driven by young people. Studies have suggested that the vaccines currently available can guard against the U.K. variant, but there are concerns that continued virus proliferation could give rise to vaccine-resistant strains.

A study by U.S. National Institute on Aging (NIA) researchers in Alzheimer's and Dementia: Translational Research and Clinical Interventions explored whether medications currently used to treat conditions other than dementia can help prevent or treat Alzheimer's disease. The research involved a new, alternative method to traditional drug discovery, which first examines data from large populations who had already been treated with those drugs for other disorders. The team initially identified a network of roughly 20 biological pathways linked to abnormal brain metabolism in people with Alzheimer's and related dementias, which may precede or influence the brain changes that lead to dementia. They then identified 35 Food and Drug Administration-approved medicines that might be effective against the network of 20 pathways, winnowing the list down to 15 best candidates for further analysis. The researchers will analyze data collected during routine healthcare for the effects of a candidate drug on dementia development, and estimate the occurrence of dementia for people treated with the candidate drug and compare it to those receiving another drug for the same disorder. If a medication seems to reduce the risk or severity of Alzheimer's and related dementias, scientists could perform lab tests to determine how the drug works against dementia, and the drugs could eventually be tested in clinical human trials.

The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a $44.4 million grant to researchers at the University of South Florida in Tampa for the Preventing Alzheimer's with Cognitive Training (PACT) Study, reports Globe Newswire . The grant advances earlier research showing that a small amount of cognitive training significantly lowered the risk and incidence of dementia among older adults. The computerized brain training used in the previous study and the new study is deployed in Posit Science's BrainHQ app, which is founded on principles of brain plasticity — how the brain rewires itself via learning. "This study addresses the central question that most people have about brain training — does training your brain reduce your chances of dementia?" said Posit Science CEO Henry Mahncke. The PACT Study plans to enlist 7,600 adults 65 and older, to test BrainHQ exercises' ability to reduce the incidence of medical diagnoses of mild cognitive impairment and dementia. A feasibility study with more than 1,000 participants has been completed, and the NIH grant intends to bring the study to scale, with completion targeted for 2027.

In the wake of February's winter storm in Texas, state lawmakers have proposed legislation to address problems that led to days-long power outages, with the latest push to keep power and heat on at senior living communities, reports KXAN . Rep. Ed Thompson (R) filed a bill requiring nursing and assisted-living communities to have a generator or another comparable backup power supply on-site in anticipation of future weather events or outages. Texas Long-term Care Ombudsman Patty Ducayet testified for the measure, noting that 56 assisted-living communities had to evacuate residents, while nine had backup power sources. However, Rep. Candy Noble (R) questioned Thompson about the logistics of implementing the bill's mandates at communities of different sizes and in different locations, and Rep. James Frank (R) echoed her concerns about who foots the bill. Doug Bray with nursing community operator Caraday Healthcare estimated that generators required by the proposal would cost anywhere from $200,000 to $500,000 per community. While Thompson stated he was willing to work with operators to find a feasible solution, he was adamant that "for the benefit of all Texans, it must be done." Texas has slightly more than 2,000 assisted-living communities, and Ducayet's data indicated that 27 skilled nursing communities evacuated residents, while 176 relied on generators to sustain power.

A report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and AARP indicates dire straits for older small business owners as the U.S. economy emerges from the pandemic, according to the Westchester and Fairfield County Business Journals . Last spring, more than 20 percent of small businesses shuttered, with 25 percent of those having owners age 45 and older. Meanwhile, the number of active companies owned by those at least 45 years old is down 9 percent compared with a 2 percent drop for firms with owners under 45. The report estimated that about 80 percent of small business owners are older than 45, and 25 percent of those who are at least 45 are worried about their personal credit scores or about losing assets because of late debt payments. Active businesses owned by whites 45 and older fell 8 percent for the year ending in January 2021, while Asian, Black, and Latino owners in the same age group saw declines of 19 percent, 16 percent, and 11 percent, respectively. "This illustrates the profound disruption the pandemic caused to small businesses and the stress it's placed on older business owners' financial health," said the New York Fed's Claire Kramer Mills. "A majority of older firm owners either reduced their salary or didn't take one at all, dipping into personal savings to cover business expenses." The New York Fed/AARP report concluded that "the experience of the pandemic creates opportunities for financial institutions to rethink how they can serve the financial needs of older entrepreneurs, particularly those owned by people of color, more effectively."

A study published in Lancet Psychiatry of more than 236,000 recovered COVID patients found that many had mood disorders, insomnia, and even stroke and dementia, reports People . Patients were mainly based in the United States, and 34 percent were diagnosed with a neurological or psychological condition within six months. Of the 14 conditions observed, anxiety was the most frequent diagnosis, found in 17 percent of subjects, followed by mood disorders in 14 percent. Seven percent had substance misuse disorders and 5 percent had insomnia. Severe neurological conditions like stroke and dementia also occurred, although they were rare: in the cohort that had been hospitalized with the virus, 7 percent suffered a stroke during the following six months and nearly 2 percent developed dementia. Most patients who had neurological conditions following their illness had been hospitalized, indicating they had a severe case of the virus, but many had milder cases that were treated at home. In comparing the health records from COVID-19 patients to subjects who had other respiratory illnesses during the same time span, the researchers learned that COVID survivors were 44 percent more likely to develop mental health conditions than flu patients, and 16 percent more likely than people with other respiratory tract infections.

State health agency data compiled by Johns Hopkins University found 44 percent of new coronavirus infections nationwide are in just five U.S. states, reports Yahoo! News . New York, Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey cumulatively posted 197,500 new cases in the latest available seven-day period, while total U.S. infections during the same week topped 452,000. Some experts and elected officials are urging the Biden administration to ship additional vaccine doses to those states, although the White House has thus far made no indication of deviating from its policy of splitting vaccine doses among states based on populace. Washington University Professor Elvin H. Geng said although sending extra shots to those places is sensible, states that are successfully containing the pandemic might consequently have less vaccine. The increase in cases has been particularly pronounced in Michigan, where the weeklong average of daily new infections totaled 6,719 cases Sunday — more than twice the number two weeks earlier.