Providers Applaud Long-Awaited Update to Older Americans Act Programs
McKnight’s Home Care / By Adam Healy After a decades-long wait, home care providers will soon be able to take advantage of new senior care resources made available by sweeping updates to the Older Americans Act. “Bold investments in the OAA infrastructure and the services supported by it are essential,” Katie Smith Sloan, president and chief executive officer of LeadingAge, said in a letter to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) on March 21. “We are already desperately behind in prioritizing the needs of our aging population.” In February, the Administration for Community Living finalized a rule to modernize the OAA — the first major change made to the legislation in more than 35 years, according to the ACL. Among its provisions, the rule made permanent various flexibilities instituted during the COVID-19 pandemic, including carry-out meals for seniors. The rule’s main priority, according to ACL, is to help seniors receive enough support to age comfortably at home and in their communities…
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Home Care Unionization Efforts Beginning To Tick Back Up
Home Health Care News / By Andrew Donlan The home care workforce has traditionally been a tough one to organize. But efforts have ramped up over recent years, leading to more workers opting into unions across the country. Recently, University of Rochester Medicine Home Care (URMHC) workers “overwhelmingly” chose to join a labor union. They aligned themselves with 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, which is one of the largest health care worker unions in the country. About 115 URMHC workers – across multiple counties – will now join the union, looking for better pay, working conditions and more say in day-to-day operations. More broadly, after a strike at the University of Rochester Medical Center last year, more than 1,600 home health aides and personal care attendants joined unions in Rochester and in the broader New York State, according to FingerLakes1.com. Unionization in home care Because home care workers are remote, they remain one or the least unionized groups of health care professionals in the country. “We don’t want this kind of third party interference between employers and employees, but there’s a tension that’s happening in this system,” Denise Delcore, then a part of the law firm Polsinelli, said in 2022. “Home care providers have had greater challenges than we’ve ever seen before. As employees are struggling to deal with those — particularly in the wake of COVID — there’s a renewed effort to organize this industry.” Part of what URMHC workers want out of unionization is better pay, which is a problem for most home-based care providers that accept Medicaid or Medicare. While providers do set wage rates, those wages are largely determined by reimbursement from state-sponsored programs. Therefore, leaders may want to raise wages, but don’t always have the vehicle to do so…
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Muscle Health May be Informed by Activity Level Rather than Aging Process
MedicalXpress / By King’s College London
A new study comparing muscle structure between active and inactive people has found that older people who regularly do endurance exercise maintain similar muscle characteristics to younger counterparts.
Researchers learned that, when compared to inactive people, those who regularly do endurance exercise maintain muscle fiber size better. In older active people, the arrangement of muscle fiber nuclei, which act as the control centers for muscle tissue, was also more similar to younger counterparts.
Endurance exercise refers to any aerobic exercise sustained over an extended period of time that improves the endurance of the cardiovascular or muscular system. Examples include cycling, running, and even walking.
The study, published in Experimental Physiology and led by Dr. Matthew Stroud, Senior Lecturer at the School of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Medicine & Sciences, used advanced 3D microscopy imaging to analyze the structure of muscles.
Samples were taken from people who do and do not regularly do endurance exercise in both younger and older people for an analysis and comparison. For untrained individuals, the aging process affected muscle fiber size and the myonuclei. However, there was found to be zero correlation between aging and these aspects of the muscles for people who exercised.
These findings suggest that inactivity has a more pronounced effect on muscle fibers and myonuclear parameters than simply getting older. This means that if people stay active as they age, the size of their muscles are more likely to be maintained, and the distribution of myonuclei, which control muscle function, might not deteriorate as much as they would if they were inactive.
"Maintaining muscle fiber size, and control of the cell via myonuclei, might contribute to maintaining muscle function, which could be particularly beneficial as part of the body's response to the natural decline in muscle mass during aging. This may ultimately help to maintain the function of muscle into older age, thereby improving independence and quality of life," says Dr. Edmund Hugh Battey, former Ph.D. student in Dr. Stroud's lab at King's.
"The association between endurance exercise and these potential muscular benefits suggests a possible avenue for mitigating age-related muscle deterioration, though further research is necessary to fully understand this relationship."
By discovering a new potential mechanism in which exercise support healthy muscles, particularly into old age, the authors hope that it can help the scientific community understand how to maintain good muscle health as we get older.
More information: Edmund Battey et al, Muscle fibre size and myonuclear positioning in trained and aged humans, Experimental Physiology (2024). DOI: 10.1113/EP091567
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This Could Be Key to Motivating Older Patients to Exercise
Medscape Medical News / By Sean Hyson
Starting an exercise regimen with others can be a powerful fitness motivator, and new research spotlights the strategy's particular importance for older adults.
In a randomized clinical trial in JAMA Network Open, older adults who talked with peers about their exercise program were able to increase and sustain physical activity levels much better than those who focused on self-motivation and setting fitness goals.
Such self-focused — or "intrapersonal" — strategies tend to be more common in health and fitness than interactive, or "interpersonal," ones, the study authors noted. Yet, research on their effectiveness is limited. Historically, intrapersonal strategies have been studied as part of a bundle of behavioral change strategies — a common limitation in research — making it difficult to discern their individual value.
"We're not saying that intrapersonal strategies should not be used," said study author Siobhan McMahon, PhD, associate professor and codirector of the Center on Aging Science and Care at the University of Minnesota, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, "but this study shows that interpersonal strategies are really important."
Low physical activity among older adults is linked with "disability, difficulty managing chronic conditions, and increased falls and related injuries," the authors wrote. Exercise can be the antidote, yet fewer than 16% of older adults meet the recommended guidelines (150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity and two muscle-strengthening sessions per week).
The study builds on previous research that suggests interpersonal strategies could help change that by encouraging more older adults to move…
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