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Guitar master and singer Doc Watson was listed in critical condition Thursday at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center after a fall at his home in Deep Gap earlier this week. Watson's daughter, Nancy, said in a telephone interview that Watson fell Monday. She said he didn't break any bones but that he's "real sick."

When Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., lost the GOP primary to challenger Richard Mourdock this month, Beltway types saw the voters' verdict as a victory for the Tea Party and a defeat for the kind of Republican who could work across the aisle. I think Lugar, 80, lost because he was out of touch with Indiana. He started the primary registered to vote at an Indiana home he had sold in 1977. The Lugars have resided in Virginia ever since. Lugar had been working in Washington for so long that he didn't realize he needed to keep up at least the...

A 90-year-old man who was attacked in his home in March along with his 85-year-old wife died Friday morning, Tulsa police said. Bob and Nancy Strait were attacked in the 3300 block of East Virgin Street late March 13 or early the next day, police said. Bob Strait died in Coweta about 11 a.m., Officer Jason Willingham said. The Medical Examiner's Office will determine whether the death is a result of the injuries he sustained in the attack, Willingham said. If so, Tyrone Dale David Woodfork, 20, who was arrested March 15 in the attack, will be charged with an...

Do you have an elderly person in your life whom you love, but drives you nuts...? especially when going to the grocery store? I do!

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel recently offered a stark assessment of the threat to his state's future that is posed by mounting pension and retiree health-care bills for government workers. Unless Illinois enacts reform quickly, he said, the costs of these programs will force taxes so high that, "You won't recruit a business, you won't recruit a family to live here." We're likely to hear more such worries in coming years. That's because state and local governments across the country have accumulated several trillion dollars in unfunded retirement promises to public-sector workers, the costs of which will increasingly force taxes higher...

One afternoon I stopped by the bank to make a few deposits. I was in a rush and needed to get in and out as soon as possible. I had places to go and things I had to do. I picked the worst possible time of day and the worst day of the week to do my banking. But I had been out of town and needed to catch up on errands before the weekend began. There was only one teller working and the line was about fifteen people deep. After waiting patiently, I got close to the front of...

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There were no beeping machines or blinking lights or scurrying medical residents. A volunteer circulated among the patients like a flight attendant, making soothing conversation and offering reading glasses, Sudoku puzzles and hearing aids. Above them, an artificial sun shined through a skylight imprinted with a photographic rendering of a robin’s-egg-blue sky, puffy clouds and leafy trees. Ms. Spielberger, who is in her 80s, was even getting into the spirit of the place, despite her unnerving condition. “It’s beautiful,” she said. “Everything here is wonderful.” Yet this was an emergency room, one specifically designed for the elderly, part of a...

When Kenneth Warden was diagnosed with terminal bladder cancer, his hospital consultant sent him home to die, ruling that at 78 he was too old to treat. Even the palliative surgery or chemotherapy that could have eased his distressing symptoms were declared off-limits because of his age. His distraught daughter Michele Halligan accepted the sad prognosis but was determined her father would spend his last months in comfort. So she paid for him to seen privately by a second doctor to discover what could be done to ease his symptoms. Thanks to her tenacity, Kenneth got the drugs and surgery...

Thousands of elderly people are dying unnecessarily early because ‘despicable’ age discrimination in the NHS is denying them treatment for cancer, a charity has warned. A lack of treatment or insufficient treatment is contributing to 14,000 deaths a year in people over the age of 75, Macmillan Cancer Support has found, in what it called an ‘unacceptable act of discrimination’. Deaths from cancer are reducing in most age groups but at a slower rate in those aged 74 to 84 and are increasing in people aged 85 and over, the report said. The report, The Age Old Excuse: the under...

COCONUT CREEK— – Vice President Joe Biden opened a new phase in President Barack Obama's reelection campaign here on Friday, warning seniors that in 2012 they face a stark choice between Democrats who want to protect Social Security and Medicare, and Republicans who supposedly would gut the programs to favor the rich.

My 95 year old mother and I are into the 19th day of dealing with a difficult case of the flu. Although we had flu shots as we do every year, the variety of flu we contracted must have not been protected by the vaccination. The fevers have been gone for over a week, but the cough just is not lifting. It's much less but the coughing just won't come to an end. My mother progressed to the beginning of pneumonia but that seems to be gone after treatment with antibiotics. My mother has been to the doctor 3 times,...

A Northeast Philadelphia man was charged with the murder of his 82-year-old father and the severe neglect his mother by starvation, according to police. Thomas Hauck, 57, of 3419 Kirkwood Road in Torresdale, was charged with third degree murder, involuntary manslaughter, felony theft and abuse of a corpse in the death of his father, according to authorities. Police say that paramedics found 82-year-old Leonard Hauck dead in the basement of the Northeast Philadelphia home. Police said it was Hauck's wife who notified authorities. The medical examiner determined on Feb. 27 that the elderly man died of dehydration and malnutrition. Police...

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) grilled Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis today about why a proposed rule to effectively eliminate current regulations that exempt “companionship services” and “live-in domestic services” from overtime requirements was created without even consulting “a single state’s Medicare director.”

David Halpern, a senior No.10 aide, said loneliness was a “more powerful predictor” of whether a pensioner would be alive for more than a decade than whether they smoked. He also suggested that elderly people who did not move to smaller homes were contributing to the shortage of housing in England. On an official visit to Sweden, the Prime Minister and some of his key advisers discussed radical plans on retirement with their Scandinavian counterparts. Mr Cameron said he supported plans to increase the retirement age in line with life expectancy which could see workers remaining in employment until well...

SOMERS, WI (WISN/CNN) – It is said that "no good deeds goes unpunished," and that seems to be true for a 75-year-old Wisconsin man who fought of carjackers in his driveway after doing them a favor. Army veteran Alex Weber's kindness nearly cost him his car after he said a man and a woman asked for his help. "A woman got out of the car and said, ‘Hey we're out of gas,' and I said OK, I don't have any here but I'll get you some," Weber said. Weber said he took the man and woman for a ride to...

[...] The local police department is stepping up enforcement at the retirement community and is targeting units involved with soliciting drug dealers and prostitutes, said Capitol Heights Police Deputy Chief Anthony Ayers Sr. "We have a few individuals that conducted in the activity themselves that are actually tenants, that are on drugs and allow the prostitutes to come into their rooms," Ayers said. "We tried to let them know that we're watching them to try and get them to slow it down." [...]

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- A former nurse at Cabell Huntington Hospital is facing serious charges. Huntington Police arrested Travis Scott Burdette, 36, of Salt Rock, Thursday on two counts of sexual assault. Click here to find out more! They say he sexually assaulted an elderly female patient at the hospital twice over the weekend. According to the criminal complaint, Burdette had sex with the patient without her consent. Burdette told a magistrate during his arraignment Thursday afternoon that he is no longer an employee at the hospital. At the time of the incident, he was working as a Licensed Practical...

You could call it fallout from the Super Committee's big flop. Deficit-reducing budget cuts are slated to take effect in just over a year. Among those taking cuts -- hospitals and doctors that treat low-income patients. Dr. William Strudwick is the director of the emergency department at Providence Hospital in northeast Washington DC. It's a neighborhood hospital with a patient base of the elderly and working poor. "About 70 percent of the patients that come through our door rely on Medicare or Medicaid," Dr. Strudwick says. But Medicare payments to Providence Hospital and other medical providers are slated for a...

In the maggot and sexual abuse stories, there was one common denominator. The aides/workers were not allowed to speak out about violations without losing their jobs. They were not allowed to talk about it or to contact the families. Nurses aides are the backbone of nursing home care. They know the patients better than anyone, but they cannot divulge heinous acts of neglect and abuse. To break this rule could mean the loss of their jobs. Silence or loss of job is a hard choice to make.

The Nathaniel Centre - The New Zealand Catholic Bioethics Centre - is appalled at suggestions that legalising euthanasia could be a solution to the increasing number of suicides amongst elderly New Zealanders. Director, John Kleinsman, says that people suffering from depression need extra care and support, not encouragement to die. "The old and the sick can too easily be persuaded, often in subtle ways, that their lives are not worth living. If people are suffering depression, they need help with that - they need support, care and counselling not a license to kill themselves or be killed at the hands...

JONESBORO, Ga. (CBS Atlanta) – Police charge two caregivers at a Jonesboro facility with waterboarding an 89-year-old woman. Clayton County police said Jermeller Steed and Cicely Reed held down Anna Foley after an argument that started over ice cream. They’re said to have allegedly held down Foley in a locked shower room, flooding her face with the hand-hold shower nozzle in 2008. According to WGCL-TV, Foley was undergoing treatment at the facility for dementia. A co-worker witnessed the event and blew the whistle. The technique slowly drowns subjects by blocking the air passages with flowing water while the subject is...

SEATTLE (AP) — A downtown march and rally in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement turned briefly chaotic as police scattered a crowd of rowdy protesters — including a pregnant 19-year-old and an 84-year-old activist — with blasts of pepper spray. Protest organizers denounced the use of force, saying that police indiscriminately sprayed the chemical irritant at peaceful protesters. The Occupy Seattle movement released a written statement late Tuesday expressing support for "a 4-foot 10-inch, 84-year-old woman, a priest and a pregnant woman who as of this writing is still in the hospital." Dorli Rainey is an activist who...

"The victim's legs were fused to the chair and her legs had to be physically separated from the foot rest portion of the chair leaving behind yellowish skin tissue," Independence police detectives said in an affidavit."

Elderly people should waltz around the living room three times a week to reduce their risk of falls, research suggests. Pensioners can also improve their balance by carrying a bag when they walk to the shops, say scientists. But walking and cycling, although good for overall health, are no good at reducing the number of falls.

Occupy DC Protesters assaulted conservatives as they exited an Americans For Prosperity “Tribute to Ronald Reagan” dinner. This elderly woman, 78 years old, rode 11 hrs on a bus from Detroit to attend the dinner. After the attack she was taken to hospital with multiple injuries, a bloody nose which developed after the fall, and a large knot on her head. After x-rays and a CAT scan, she was released the following morning with cuts and large bruises.

Video footage on board a Florida school bus shows a 70-year-old bus attendant beating and biting a student she claimed had bullied her, police tell Fox News. The incident, which was first reported by the Orlando Sentinel, occurred June 2 on a school bus carrying students from Lakeland Senior High School. Surveillance video on the bus reportedly shows the 4-foot-7 woman, identified as Hattie Yvonne Branch, confronting a 14-year-old boy. Branch is seen striking, biting and wrestling with him, according to the newspaper.

FULL TITLE: Right-to-die grandmother has 'do not resuscitate' TATTOO on her chest (and PTO inked on her back!) A grandmother who wants doctors to let her die if she falls ill has had 'Do Not Resuscitate' tattooed across her chest - and 'PTO' on her back. Joy Tomkins, 81, decided she did not want to be brought back to life in a medical emergency following the slow death of her husband Malcolm. The mum-of-two, who is not terminally ill, visited a tattoo parlour in January this year and paid £5 to have 'Do Not Resuscitate' written across her chest to...

So-called comedian David Cross appeared on Current TV's Countdown with Keith Olbermann and refers to a study that claims watching one hour of television shortens your life by 22 minutes (not including commercials). He offers up his novel solution of not having to medically support worthless elderly who are "not contributing anything." This was such a funny joke everyone forgot to laugh...

DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - A 79-year-old Oak Cliff woman succumbs to the North Texas heat and dies in her home just two days after reporting to police that her central air conditioner had been stolen.Dolores Grissom’s home sits on a corner with the air conditioning unit is completely exposed; only protected by a cage with a lock. On July 14 Grissom reported that her $2,500 unit was stolen. On July 16 she was found dead. Just this week the Dallas County Medical Examiner’s Office completed their report that stated Grissom’s death was heat-related.Grissom, who was buried last week, lived with her...

If there were a contest for the most misleading words used in politics, “poverty” should be one of the leading contenders for that title. Each of us may have his own idea of what poverty means — especially those of us who grew up in poverty. But what poverty means politically and in the media is whatever the people who collect statistics choose to define as poverty. This is not just a question of semantics. The whole future of the welfare state depends on how poverty is defined. “The poor” are the human shields behind whom advocates of ever bigger...

A reclusive copper heiress who spent the past decades living in New York City hospitals has left most of her $400 million fortune to charity--and a nurse who was randomly assigned to care for her 20 years ago. The New York Post reports that Huguette Clark did not leave a penny to her family members. The lion's share of her fortune will go to a foundation to promote the arts. She left the biggest chunk of the remaining inheritance--a testament worth about $38 million--to her private nurse, Hadassah Peri. She also left Peri her collection of dolls and dollhouses, which...

LOS ANGELES – When Bob Krause turned 90 last week, it was by virtue of an unflagging determination and a mentality of precision that kept his body humming after being diagnosed with diabetes as a boy. A leading diabetes research center named the San Diego resident the first American known to live 85 years with the disease, a life that has paralleled — and benefited from — the evolution in treatment. > The former University of Washington mechanical engineering professor says he's succeeded because he treats his body like a car and he only eats enough food to fuel the...

Doctors are prescribing drinking water for neglected elderly patients to stop them dying of thirst in hospital. The measure – to remind nurses of the most basic necessity – is revealed in a damning report on pensioner care in NHS wards. Some trusts are neglecting the elderly on such a fundamental level their wards could face closure orders. The snapshot study, triggered by a Mail campaign, found staff routinely ignored patients’ calls for help and forgot to check that they had had enough to eat and drink. Dehydration contributes to the death of more than 800 hospital patients every year....

An elderly woman in southeast Reno was promised car repair in exchange for a fee but instead was left with an empty purse and minus three valuable puppies. Police say it happened around 5 p.m., Tues., when an elderly woman received a knock on her door by three men offering to fix her damaged car in her garage in exchange for money. The victim agreed to the deal and paid the suspects $700, up front, in cash. With the money in hand, the suspects fled the scene and took with them three of her purebred female Shihtzus. How were the...

Doctors are prescribing drinking water for neglected elderly patients to stop them dying of thirst in hospital. The measure – to remind nurses of the most basic necessity – is revealed in a damning report on pensioner care in NHS wards. Some trusts are neglecting the elderly on such a fundamental level their wards could face closure orders. The snapshot study, triggered by a Mail campaign, found staff routinely ignored patients’ calls for help and forgot to check that they had had enough to eat and drink.

Elderly woman, dentist fight over dentures At one point, 85-year-old tried to climb out window to escape, affidavit says

At nearly 90 years old, Betty White has a message for senior citizens: get over it. The Golden Girls star can be seen stressing that age really isn’t a big deal in her promotional videos for AARP. Age shouldn’t be a deciding factor when voting for politicians either, the starlet told Politico in an interview Monday. “I think it’s mental activity and physical health that should have a lot to do with it, not just the number of years,” White said. For White, the age of the politician doesn’t necessarily make them an incapable public servant. “I think someone’s health...

A teenager from Kanawha County has admitted to beating and robbing an elderly woman. UPDATE 5/16/11 @ 11:30 a.m. CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- A teenager from Kanawha County has admitted to beating and robbing an elderly woman. Shane Peck pleaded guilty Monday to robbery and assault. Click here to find out more! Peck and another teenager, Joseph Gibson, broke into Geraldine Gibson's house in Big Chimney back in March. That is when police say they beat and robbed her. Geraldine Gibson was hurt so badly she was in ICU for days after the crime. Peck and Gibson say Geraldine's son...

WASHINGTON – A new government report says many elderly nursing home residents suffering from dementia may be victims of overmedication with strong anti-psychotic drugs that could harm them... The Health and Human Services inspector general says that in 2007, more than 300,000 nursing home residents got powerful drugs meant for treating serious mental illnesses like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. But nearly 90 percent of the time, the prescriptions were for patients suffering from dementia, a condition for which the anti-psychotic drugs are not approved. (excerpted)

Deputies say Lockhart was part of a crew MASON COUNTY, W.Va (WSAZ) -- A man has been arrested in connection with a driveway paving scheme. Mason County Sheriff's Deputies tell WSAZ.com Timothy Lockhart, 22, of Princeton, West Virginia, was arrested Wednesday. Click here to find out more! Deputies say Lockhart was part of a crew that showed up and paved an elderly couple's driveway when no one was home. When the victim returned, the men demanded she pay them $8700 for the work they had done. Deputies say the victim negotiated the men down to $6000 after she convinced them...

TOPSFIELD (MA)— Four nursing assistants have been fired and two top administrators replaced at one of the state's top-rated nursing homes, in the wake of patient abuse allegations. A report completed last month by state investigators alleged that at least a dozen residents of the Masconomet Healthcare Center in Topsfield were subjected to various forms of verbal abuse and humiliation — including one patient with dementia who was recorded on a cell-phone camera answering questions in a confused manner, to the amusement of a nursing assistant who then shared the video with coworkers. The report says a group of four...

An upper-crust private school with campuses in Fort Lauderdale and Boca Raton is facing eight age-discrimination complaints filed by longtime teachers, assistants and a maintenance worker. “It’s an elder massacre,” said labor attorney William Amlong, who filed the complaints against Pine Crest School on behalf of the three men and five women, ranging from 54 to 72 years old. “Most of them are long-term employees, none of them have any performance problems that have been brought to their attention and they were all summarily told, ‘You’re out of here.’ ” According to the complaints filed during the past two months with...

Elderly people in the Netherlands are so fearful of being killed by doctors that they carry cards saying they do not want euthanasia, according to a campaigner who says allowing assistant suicide in Britain would put the vulnerable at risk. [...] In an article published on BMJ.com on Friday, Mr Fitzpatrick wrote: “Disabled people, like others, and often with more reason, need to feel safe. Thus eroding what may already be a shaky sense of safety in medical care poses a further threat to disabled people’s wellbeing...and life itself.” He cited the experience of Baroness Campbell of Surbiton, the disabled...

"In our study," said Huang, "we found the best overall outcomes among those with the intermediate levels of control, those with A1Cs below 8 percent but above 6 percent. We observed similar patterns for those in their 60s, 70s, and over 80." Finding the optimal A1C target is a balancing act, the authors note. The risk of all complications rose with blood sugar levels, but those with an A1C between 6 and 8 percent had the lowest death rates. While those with very poorly controlled blood sugars—A1C over 10 percent—had the highest rates of death, those with an A1C below...

There's still no foolproof way to predict who will develop dementia, but brain scientists say they have identified a new clue: Cluelessness, as in an inability to tell when people are lying or using sarcasm. A preliminary new study conducted at the University of California at San Francisco suggests that the neurodegenerative process responsible for dementia also causes deterioration of regions of the brain responsible for detecting insincere speech. "These patients cannot detect lies," study author Dr. Katherine Rankin, of the university's Memory and Aging Center, said in a written statement. "This fact can help them be diagnosed earlier." It...

PHILIPSBURG, St. Maarten -- An 85-year-old British sailor who dreamed of crossing the Atlantic on a raft as a young boy completed the journey with three friends Wednesday. The crossing to this Caribbean island, led by Anthony Smith of London, took about two months and was generally smooth except for damage to two rudders on the large, sail-powered raft. "Some people say it was mad," he told The Associated Press when he

That's OK, he wasn't planning on any speaking gigs from AARP anyway. As is his wont, libtalker Ed Schultz revealed his underlying opinion on a specific subject without even being aware he was doing it, this time on senior citizens. Here's Schultz on his radio show yesterday with his warped take on elders, after initially referring to Republicans' proposed budget plan calling for broad spending cuts over the next decade (audio) -- The path that the Republicans are taking to achieve this is what we call in the media, what I've called in the media for a long time, a...

SYDNEY (AFP) – A 92-year-old has become the oldest woman committed to stand trial for murder in Australia, accused of bludgeoning and stabbing her wealthy 98-year-old husband to death, according to a report. Clara Tang, who allegedly killed Ching Yung Tang after 70 years of marriage in their Sydney apartment in March last year, has pleaded not guilty on the grounds of mental illness, the Sun-Herald said. The elderly woman appeared in a local court last week and was ordered to stand trial in the Supreme Court on a date to be fixed.

A woman was arrested in Kissimmee on Thursday after police said she sold an 88-year-old man oral sex, and then returned a month later to violently rob him after he didn't pay up. Kissimmee police were called to the Elizabeth Avenue home of the elderly victim on March 11. The man told officers that he had been attacked and robbed by a woman later identified as 41-year-old Tanya Ross.According to police reports, Ross forced her way into the victim's home, knocked a phone out of his hand when he tried to call 911, and then grabbed him by the throat...