Top stories:
State Makes Push To Prevent Falls By Elderly
By Associated Press - December 30, 2008
It’s one of the most preventable of injuries, but routinely claims the lives of hundreds of elderly residents.
Now Massachusetts health officials say they are making a new push to help prevent falls.
In 2006 alone, 340 Massachusetts residents aged 65 and older died due to falls. Another 20,000 needed hospital stays and 37,000 required emergency room visits.
Hospital charges for fall-related visits in the state were almost $500 million in 2006.
Health officials say there are few relatively simple steps that can help prevent falls including getting regular eye exams, eating food rich in calcium and vitamin D, exercising to improve balance and installing railings and grab bars where needed.
A checklist to guide health-care reform
By Val Halamandaris - December 30, 2008
President-elect Barack Obama advocated changes in health care, but the question remains: What kind of change makes sense? What changes would constitute an improvement in U.S. health care?
Here are my thoughts based on my more than 40 years experience:
- Set goals. Just as President John F. Kennedy set the goal of going to the moon and back by the end of the decade, the new president should set the goal by 2020 of being the healthiest nation on the planet.
- Amend the Constitution to say that access to health care is a fundamental right of all Americans. It should be secured in the Constitution as an explicit right.
- See that the Olmstead decision is enforced. The U.S. Supreme Court in 1999 ruled that states could not put individuals in institutions unless they had exhausted every possibility of having them cared for in their home setting. In my view, this decision came close to creating a constitutional right for in-home care. I call it the last great civil-rights battle.
- Save emergency rooms for real emergencies. Have you been to an ER recently? It's not a happy experience. Emergency rooms are crowded with people who have a variety of problems with varying severity, and it takes forever to receive service.
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50somethinginfo.com Launches Baby Boomer Search Engine
December 30, 2008
50somethinginfo.com, a company dedicated to enhancing the everyday lives of people 50something and better, has launched a baby boomer search engine designed to deliver highly targeted information to users looking for the best of the net for the rest of their lives.
A major departure from mainstream search engines, this one-of-a-kind website applies a
50something lens to every search query, delivering relevant and reliable information pre-screened by the company's founder, Susan Levine, a 50something herself. The site's goal is to provide expedient information that is not just age-relevant-but more importantly, lifestyle relevant.
On 50somethinginfo.com you can do a search for 'clothes' or 'travel' and you won't find the conventional keyword driven results that often prove unrelated to your query. And instead of giving you broad search results that only lead to more searching, 50somethinginfo.com will help you find the specific information you need to shorten your time online so you can get on with living your life.
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