Joint Replacement Increases Stroke Risk Fourfold (VIDEO)
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Meditation More Effective in Reducing Heart Attacks and Strokes
Transcendental meditation is more effective than health education in reducing heart attacks and strokes among African-Americans with heart disease according to researchers at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.
Almost half of the 201 study participants were women with an average age 59. Many members of the study took cholesterol-lowering drugs, smoked or were obese.
Half the study subjects went to a health education class focused around diet and exercise and lifestyle modification, while the others practiced meditation for twice a day for 20 minutes.
The latter group was more likely to see their blood pressure drop and reported reduced amounts of smoking. Those who meditated were less likely to die or experience a heart attack or stroke, the investigators found.åÊåÊ
Of course the benefits of meditation have been well documented. And this study logically makes sense. The more relaxed and at peace you are the more likely you will reduce your risk of heart attack, stroke and other stress-related disorders. Reading about it (health education) is not acting upon it. When you act, things happen. So meditate on that!
Hip Replacement Increase Stroke Risk Fourfold
Individuals who underwent a total hip replacement had at least four times the risk of suffering a stroke in the weeks immediately following, a Dutch study reported.
Researchers say more cautious monitoring after such a procedure is warranted.
Hip replacement patients showed nearly five times the rate of ischemic stroke than a control group. The rate of hemorrhagic stroke was a little more than four times as much.
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The rates were highest in the two weeks following surgery but declined quickly thereafter, evening out after six to 12 weeks, said Frank de Vries, PharmD, PhD, of the Utrecht Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences in the Holland, one of the researchers. His team’s work is detailed online in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association.
ÛÏRisk assessment of stroke in individual patients undergoing total hip replacement (i.e. evaluate other risk factors for stroke) should be considered during the first 6 to 12 weeks,Û the researchers wrote.åÊ
They examined records of 200,000 individuals, including more than 66,000 who had total hip replacement from 1998 to 2007, to reach their findings.
Source: McKnights
Long-Term Costs Continue to Rise (VIDEO)
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Long-Term Costs Continue to Rise
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| Courtesy MetLife |
MetLife Mature Market InstituteÛªs 2012 market survey shows that average national long-term care costs continue to rise. The national average annual charge for a private nursing home room rose to $90,520 this year, while semi-private rooms climbed to $81,030 and assisted living residency jumped to $42,600.
- Nursing home rates increased by 3.8% to $248 daily for a private room and 3.7% to $222 daily for a semi-private room.
In 2011, 66% of nursing home residents were women;median age of residents was 82.6 years; 16% of all residents were under the age of 65.
- Assisted living base rates rose by 2.1% to $3,550 monthly.
- Rates for adult day services remained unchanged at $70 per day.
There are over 5,000 adult day centers in the U.S. serving over 260,000 participants and family caregivers. Sixty-three percent of surveyed centers provide transportation. Half do not charge a fee for this service.
- Home health aide rates were unchanged at $21 per hour.
The majority (68%) of home health care agencies surveyed provide AlzheimerÛªs training to their employees and almost all do not charge an additional fee for patients with AlzheimerÛªs.
- Homemaker/companion service rates increased by 5.3% to $20 per hour.
MetLife surveyed 2,078 nursing homes, 1,513 assisted living communities, 1,732 home care agencies, and 1,363 adult day services centers in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The cities/areas surveyed were chosen on the basis of population and the ability to obtain a representative sampling of facilities and providers.
Paying for long-term care only gets harder and harder. With the CLASS Act demolished and few players left in the long-term care insurance market, consumer options are dwindling.
The Assurance Benefit might be an interim savior for some people, allowing them to hold on to assets and not spend down as quickly.
There are larger issues at play here though. On the consumer side, people need to financially plan for their long-term care needs and that is hard to do when you are young and healthy and are not thinking about this. There is also a responsibility for people to take care of themselves physically. People with multiple chronic conditions account for 80 percent of the healthcare costs in this country. I see people in nursing homes who got there not because age caught up with them but because they did not keep up with themselves.
For providers, the future is clear. Just as hospitals are being asked to become more efficient while increasing quality so too are long-term providers. These costs cannot continue to rise with an expectation that consumers will be able to pay or that the government will either, whether it is through the Medicare or Medicaid system. And people will migrate to the lowest cost setting so aging in place will become more and more prevalent. That in turn means changing your business model to compete. There is a prediction that in the next two decades we will not need half of the hospitals in this country. Would venture to guess the same for four-walled providers of long-term care services.
