FYI Daily

Heart attacks are easy to spot - crushing pain on the left side of the chest, right? Wrong, says the Journal of the American Medical Association in a recent study. Especially not if you're female.

Researchers looked at more than 1.1 million cases of heart attack in men and women, according to NPR, and found that women often present with totally different (and irritatingly mundane) symptoms, including shortness of breath, jaw or back pain, and nausea.

This is especially true for women under age 55, said the BBC, which can lead to younger women not getting essential treatment in time. As women age, their heart attack symptoms and risks generally get closer to men's, which might be related to a menopausal drop in estrogen.

Even then, chest pain from a heart attack may differ in intensity. Cathy Ross, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, told the BBC that "Symptoms vary; for some the pain is severe and yet others may feel nothing more than a mild discomfort or heaviness...  Read more

Nearly everyone knows that aging eyes need brighter light to read or even see. Now it turns out that bright indoor light, or better yet, bright sunlight, helps the body regulate all kinds of internal mechanisms influencing overall health. Older adults' eyes have a role in things as seemingly-unrelated to them as memory and depression, reports Laurie Tarkan in The New York Times.

Here's why: As we get older, the eye's lens gradually yellows and the pupil narrows. So less sunlight reaches key cells in the retina that regulate the circadian rhythm system, the body's exquisite internal clock.

Circadian rhythms, Tarkan explains, are the cyclical hormonal and physiological processes that start up in the morning and wind down at night. They regulate the release of hormones like melatonin and cortisol. Disturbed circadian rhythms are thought to have a role in conditions ranging from memory loss and slowed reaction time to insomnia and depression...  Read more

Any advice for those thousands of newly engaged young couples out there planning spring and summer weddings? Among the topics that experts say they should talk out before they tie the knot: Credit scores, when to start a family, conflict management styles a "relationship mission statement" -- and oh yes, what about how will future potential caregiving obligations impact the marriage?

Premarital discussions ought to include "not only the couple's finances, but also estimates of their liabilities for caring, emotionally and financially, for their parents," wrote a New York City social worker, as one of more than 100 reader responses to an earlier "Field Notes" column in The New York Times about questions couples ought to ask one another before marrying.

Seeing as many couples don't even work through basic money issues, asking about future caregiving commitments may strike some people as a little far-fetched...  Read more

Government benefits to older Americans might not be as ample as many would wish -- but a surprising portion of the benefits that currently exist are going unclaimed by those who are eligible. In fact, some $20 billion worth is lost by low-income adults not enrolled in programs designed to help them, says the National Council on Aging (NCOA).

Now an effort is underway to convince more families to access these financial breaks, which include programs for subsidized prescription drugs, food stamps, help with heating bills, subsidies to lower Medicare premiums, home care aides, respite care, tax relief, transportation programs, legal assistance, and more.

"You gave, now save," is the slogan for a new campaign by the NCOA and the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging to encourage older Americans to claim the benefits they're due.

“Especially with the older old, they don’t want to to take what they consider ‘welfare...  Read more

Alzheimer's advocates often make the point that the disease isn't just "what it is" but how we see it. Do we view our loved ones as victims of a terrible tragedy that has robbed us of them, replaced by hollow facsimiles? Or do we embrace this latest iteration of who they are and look for the joyful moments and life lessons within? Essayist Robert Leleux argues for the latter in a New York Times "Well" guest post.

Writing about his grandmother, who went from feisty and crusty to mellow and forgiving of long grudges (including against his mother), Leleux argues that his own "failure to accept the change she was undergoing" is the source of his grief over her condition.

He says that being with her taught him to live in the moment more. He believes that people with Alzheimer's still have "wisdom and insight" that shouldn't be discounted.

He writes: "I routinely hear right-minded, enlightened...  Read more

According to early data from a small study, interrupted sleep is associated with pre-clinical Alzheimer's.

Lead researcher Yo-El Ju, a physician and assistant professor of neurology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, worked with 100 older adults who were dementia-free at the start of the study. Participants wore a device to measure their sleep quality and filled out questionnaires about their sleep habits.

Researchers then looked at the spinal fluid and brain scans of those participants. About a quarter of the participants were dubbed to have pre-clinical Alzheimer's -- where a person has amyloid plaques but no symptoms of cognitive impairment -- based on those screenings.

The worse a participants' sleep -- more brief awakenings during the night, more time lying in bed but not sleeping -- the more likely he or she was to have pre-clinical Alzheimer's.

According...  Read more

Lots of things influence how stressful caregiving is for a given individual, like the state of your loved one's health, how long the caregiving journey has gone on, and how much help you have. Now add your personality to the list, according to a new study in Psychology and Aging.

• Are you a negative, anxious person?
• Are you energetic and outgoing?
• Are you curious?
• Are you friendly and compassionate?
• Are you efficient and organized?

Personality accounted for about a quarter of the differences in caregivers' mental health and about 10 percent of the differences in their physical health, lead author Corinna Loeckenhoff, assistant professor of human development in Cornell University's College of Human Ecology said in Medical Xpress. More than 500 caregivers of older adults were involved in the study.

Being extraverted (being energetic and outgoing) was positively associated with mental and physical health; showing neuroticism (being negative and anxious) was negatively associated with mental and physical health...  Read more

Here's a question for everyone who worries about a loved one's memory -- or every dementia caregiver who has ever wondered if his or her own memory is slipping: Would it be helpful if cognitive checks were done routinely, as part of a primary-care exam?

A new study in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society reports that screenings with a two-minute "mini-cog" cognitive screening test increased the number of dementia cases detected by two- to threefold -- uncovering many cases that would otherwise have gone unnoticed by doctors.

Nearly 11 percent of the 8,000 veterans screened by the Minnesota Veterans Affairs Medical Center were found to have some form of cognitive impairment, compared to 4 percent in clinics that didn't use this test. All the vets were over 70 and had no known history of memory problems. More than 90 percent of the discovered impairments were confirmed in follow-up testing...  Read more

According to researchers at the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging, a high-calorie diet (between 2,200 and 6,000 calories a day) is associated with a higher incidence of mild cognitive impairment.

Lead author Yonas Geda, from the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, and his team talked to over a thousand older adults in Minnesota and asked them to report their caloric intake. After one year, researchers split the group into thirds based on their diet.

Those in the highest-calorie group were twice as likely to be diagnosed with MCI as those in the lowest-calorie group (600 to about 1500 calories per day).

According to CNN, Geda and his team were quick to point out that their research proves association, not causation, and therefore shouldn't be used as a guideline for caloric intake.

In addition, while the researchers took into account things like age, sex, education, depression, and diabetes, they didn't have information on levels of physical activity...  Read more

Families of those with Alzheimer's -- including, judging from our mail and comments, many Caring.com members -- are clamoring for the skin cancer drug that was serendipitously found to 'wash away' Alzheimer's disease'-- in lab experiments. People are asking: Where can I get this drug? How can I get my loved one in a trial? Can I get a doctor to prescribe it for my husband-wife-mother-father-grandparent with Alzheimer's right now?

Here's what's known thus far, according to follow-up reports by The Wall Street Journal and elsewhere:

• The drug (bexarotene) hasn't yet been tested on any humans with Alzheimer's disease. So no one knows what a safe or effective dosage might be -- or even if it works on people. The very preliminary studies were done on mice. It's typically a big jump to replicating in humans lab results on rodents.

• Researchers at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio...  Read more