Counter-Protesters Flock to Downtown D.C. to Oppose White Supremacists | Washington City Paper
In a powerful rebuke to the Nazis and white supremacists rallying in D.C. near the White House on August 12 for the one year anniversary of the violent “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, thousands of counter-protesters took to the streets to condemn the racist viewpoints of rally organizer Jason Kessler and his supporters. White supremacists and nationalists marching with “Unite the Right 2” went to meet counter-protesters at Lafayette Square in front of the White House in the late afternoon and ended up leaving before they were scheduled to speak. Police and a significant physical barrier—a stretch of the park separated by fences—were in place to keep the two groups apart. Counter-protest groups gathered at various locations in downtown D.C. in the morning and throughout the afternoon
The Health 202: Medicaid advocates now have two more studies to back them up \ The Washington Post
Advocates of Medicaid expansion got some positive reinforcement in several recently released studies. This year, the perennial struggle over the future of the health-care program for low-income Americans became even more pronounced. After an epic political battle, Virginia’s government agreed to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act to more low-income residents beginning next year. And three conservative states — Utah, Idaho and Nebraska — are considering it, too. Meanwhile, 11 states have filed applications with the federal government to effectively scale back the program by adding new eligibility requirements.
President Trump and his administration have targeted Obamacare, weakening several of its key provisions, while Republicans in Congress, after failing to repeal and replace the ACA last summer, are trying to scale back some entitlements that help the poor: food stamps, housing programs and Medicaid (they argue a strong economy allows more able-bodied adults to work). Democrats have responded by taking up the mantle of “Medicare for all” and some states are considering “Medicaid for more” programs.
Aging Headbangers Escape Nursing Home To Hit Heavy Metal Festival | The Huffington Post
Managers of a German nursing home began to panic when they couldn’t find a pair of elderly friends anywhere on the grounds. Police later discovered the men “disoriented and dazed”— at a heavy metal festival. The unidentified pals left the home in the rural Dithmarschen district and likely hitchhiked and took public transit to travel 25 miles to the Wacken Open Air festival near Hamburg. The headbangers’ event is touted as the biggest metal festival in the world.
The Call to Care for Aging Parents Comes Sooner Now | The Wall Street Journal
Adrienne Glusman was 29, single and carefree when she became her mother’s caregiver.
The only child of divorced parents, Ms. Glusman was living in New York City at the time, working, traveling, and going out with friends. Her mother, Hetty, in her mid-60s, was retired and living in Florida when she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. It seemed manageable, until she fell, hit her head and wasn’t discovered for 12 hours. “My life was uprooted in the blink of an eye,” says Ms. Glusman. In the eight years since, Ms. Glusman, now 37, left New York and moved to Florida to take care of her mother, who now lives in an assisted-living community. Ms. Glusman oversees her mother’s finances and medical care, consults with her doctors, nurses and aides, and takes her to medical appointments and therapy, bringing along her laptop so she can work.
‘Too Little Too Late’: Bankruptcy Booms Among Older Americans | New York Times
For a rapidly growing share of older Americans, traditional ideas about life in retirement are being upended by a dismal reality: bankruptcy. The signs of potential trouble — vanishing pensions, soaring medical expenses, inadequate savings — have been building for years. Now, new research sheds light on the scope of the problem: The rate of people 65 and older filing for bankruptcy is three times what it was in 1991, the study found, and the same group accounts for a far greater share of all filers. Driving the surge, the study suggests, is a three-decade shift of financial risk from government and employers to individuals, who are bearing an ever-greater responsibility for their own financial well-being as the social safety net shrinks.
Pennington looking for older African Americans for dementia study | The Advocate
Scientists at LSU Pennington Biomedical Research Center are recruiting participants for a study on dementia prevention in older African-Americans. The project is distinctive because few studies to date have specifically come up with changes in behavior that target preventing dementia in older African-Americans, said Dr. Robert Newton, who designed the project with Dr. Owen Carmichael. “The goal of Program for the African-American Cognition and Exercise study is to increase our knowledge of the effects of behavior change programs on dementia prevention,” Newton said.
Deerfield-based Walgreens honored for disability inclusion efforts | Chicago Tribune
A Glenbrook North High School student working as a Walgreens intern was recently hired on permanently thanks to a program that allows employees to go through training rather than testing to secure a job. That training program geared toward people with disabilities is one of the reasons Deerfield-based Walgreens was among the 126 businesses nationwide named the best places to work for disability inclusion last month.
8-Year-Old Boy with Disability Trains to Become Professional Swimmer | VOA
An Egyptian boy born with a disability is making waves in the swimming pool. His arms are short from a rare disease, but that’s not stopping him from chasing his dream. Arash Arabasadi reports.
Doctors With Disabilities Push For Culture Change In Medicine | NPR
Lisa Iezzoni was in medical school at Harvard in the early 1980s when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She started experiencing some of the symptoms, including fatigue, but she wasn’t letting that get in the way of her goal. Then came the moment she scrubbed in on a surgery and the surgeon told her what he thought of her chances in the field. “He opined that I had no right to go into medicine because I lacked the most important quality in medicine,” Iezzoni recalls “And that was 24/7 availability.” Iezzoni didn’t end up becoming a doctor. This was before the Americans with Disabilities Act passed in 1990, and she says she just didn’t have the support.
Red States May Be Ready to Expand Medicaid — In Exchange for Work | Pew
Kentucky Republican Gov. Matt Bevin says he doesn’t want more able-bodied poor people to get Medicaid in his state unless a portion of them are required to work. And when Republicans in Virginia agreed to expand Medicaid this year, they also said recipients who are able would have to work. In several states this year, the march to bring health care benefits to more low-income residents came with the insistence that able-bodied adults — who are just a fraction of all Medicaid recipients — put in hours of work or volunteer time each month to retain the assistance. The politics worked: Many Democratic lawmakers went along as assurance that more people could reap benefits from the Affordable Care Act, while Republicans were able to show their base that they were holding people accountable for receiving aid. As a result, Republican-led states have increasingly expanded coverage with such restrictions, and some red states that had already expanded Medicaid are opting to add them.
It’s Time for Advertising to Stop Perpetuating Negative Stereotypes About Aging | AdWeek
t’s a truth universally acknowledged that a brand in possession of a good marketing strategy must be in want of a customer under the age of 35. So obsessed are we with millennials and Gen Z today that there are now agencies whose sole purpose is to help companies understand how to market to them. We might forgive the proclivity if it was where the most significant financial opportunity lay, it is, in fact, older people who hold, and will continue to keep, all the spending power for the foreseeable future.
The Future of Aging: Bringing Hollywood to the Hospital | Forbes
Ask anyone about their vision for anti-aging and you will likely be presented with a scene straight out of a Hollywood sci-fi movie with ageless humans and advanced regenerative tech—remember the movie Elysium with its Med-Bays that could cure disease as well as regenerate the human body, thereby offering eternal youth? While the dream of eternal youth has been around since Ponce de León supposedly went searching for the fountain of youth, modern science today offers anti-aging avenues through which this might just be possible. Well almost.
As Opioid Epidemic Rages, Painkiller Prescriptions Don’t Drop | U.S> News & World Report
In a sign that the U.S. opioid epidemic is still not under control, a new report shows that prescriptions for the highly addictive painkillers haven’t declined in the last decade. After peaking in 2012-2013, opioid use and doses leveled off. But doses were still higher in 2017 than in 2007, and opioid use was particularly high among older patients suffering chronic pain, researchers found.
Prescribing of opioids remains high largely because of a medical culture that evolved over many years, said study lead researcher Molly Moore Jeffery, a health economist at the Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minn.
We need more than goodwill when we write about disability | The Guardian (UK)
Discrimination around physical and mental illness is embedded in our language – so constant focus is needed to reduce hurt
“Straw-less summer”: Balancing sustainability and disability rights on the Eastern Shore | DelMarVa Now
Although she hates plastic, 71-year-old Jacqueline Williams drinks from plastic disposable straws every day.
She doesn’t have much of a choice.
“I can’t swallow fast enough, my neck was broken,” said Williams, who was in a near-death car accident nine years ago. “I have no control, that’s why I use a straw.”
Confidence persists despite dip in July job numbers for Americans with disabilities | Medical Xpress
Job numbers declined again for Americans with Disabilities last month, according to today’s National Trends in Disability Employment—Monthly Update (nTIDE), issued by Kessler Foundation and the University of New Hampshire’s Institute on Disability (UNH-IOD). Despite the second month of downturns, experts remain optimistic about future job gains as the labor market continues to tighten.
Another Social Determinant Of Health: How Philanthropy Can Help Rural Communities Use Technology To Improve Mobility And Health | Health Affairs
Rural America is home to iconic landscapes, essential industries, and close-knit communities, with a diverse population that tends to be older and poorer than the rest of the country is. Rural health providers care for their patients despite workforce shortages and hospital closures. Getting around in rural America can be challenging because of long distances, heavy reliance on personal cars and trucks, and few or no public transportation options in many places.
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