ElderWeb

A recent study evaluated the feasibility of providing telemedical wound care using a mobile telephones with integrated cameras as a way to reduce the cost of care and make it easier to work with patients at a distance. A team of doctors led by Dr. Ralph Peter Braun of the University Hospital of Geneva set up three physicians to evaluate 61 leg ulcers. One physician did a face-to-face consultation that was used to determine the quality of the remote evaluations, and the other two physicians worked from pictures taken with a cell phone camera and sent to them by email. The researchers found that results from the remote evaluations were nearly as reliable as the face-to-face evaluation. The physicians considered the camera image to be good 59% of the time, and very good 20% of the time, and said they felt comfortable making a diagnosis based on the pictures in 82% of the cases.

The article is available in the Archives of Dermatology at: http://archderm.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/141/2/254

Paro, a robot that looks like a baby harp seal and is covered in fur like a stuffed animal, is being used to provide therapy for some elderly Japanese nursing home residents. Paro has sensors to help it recognize its master's voice and hand gestures, and it coos and flaps at gentle touches and but squeals in anger if handled roughly. The developers state their purpose in creating Paro was to provide the benefits of animal therapy in environments where there are concerns about using live animals because of allergies, infection, scratching, and biting.

They state, "Almost everyone has touched or played with cats and dogs, so when they experience the robotic form of these animals, they can not help but compare the robot to the real creatures. If the robot does not respond in a familiar way or if it feels different from the real animal, people often become critical of the robot and lose the chance to experience its therapeutic qualities. We selected baby harp seals as the model for our robot because most people have not had any contact with such animals. When considering human-robot interaction, we envisioned a robot that could sit in a person's lap so that it could be held or stroked. That is how Paro came to be."

A March 10, 2005 article in the Washington Post said, "Researchers have been testing the robot's effect on the elderly at a nursing home in Tsukuba, about 40 miles northeast of Tokyo. During a recent visit by a reporter, the sad eyes of elderly residents lit up as the two resident robot seals were brought out. Tests have shown that the cute newcomers indeed reduce stress and depression among the elderly."

Read more about Paro at: http://www.aist.go.jp/aist_e/museum/science/6/6.html

Kyodo News reports that the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's tax policy-setting panel decided Wednesday to lift restrictions on tax breaks on equity investment trusts for people aged 65 or older. This is intended to encourage older people to shift their money away from bank and postal deposits and into equities.

Gabriele Doblhammer and James W. Vaupel of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research studied remaining life expectancy at age 50 of people in Denmark, Austria, and Australia, and found that in northern hemisphere countries, people born in the fall months of October-December had longer life expectancies than those born in the spring months of April-June. They found that the pattern was repeated in the southern hemisphere, where everything shifted by six months so that, again, those born in fall months had the longest life expectancies. The researchers reported that these findings are based on population data with more than a million observations. They also found a correlation between the month of birth and chronic diseases related to the cardiovascular, respiratory, and digestive systems, as well as for infectious diseases such as pneumonia and influenza. They speculate that these differences may be partly due to the fact that many years ago people were likely to eat much better in the summer than in the winter, thus mothers who gave birth to babies in the fall would have had better nutrition throughout most of their pregnancy than those who were pregnant during winter months. The report was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

Researchers at the University of Verona studied the relationship between body mass and lung function in older men and found a strong relationship between body composition, fat distribution, and lung function in elderly men. Researchers concluded that a small reduction in body mass might lead to significant improvement in lung function. The study was published in the April issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

The Associated Press reports that Taiwan's top economic planner, Chen Po-chih, chairman of the Council for Economic Planning and Development, said that women with low-paying jobs should stay home to care for their husbands' elderly parents. The government toughened regulations last year to allow only families with severely disabled relatives to hire foreign maids or caretakers. Chen told lawmakers that women with low-paying jobs should stay home to care for their in-laws. He said that the regulations should not be relaxed to spare them that duty.

A new gerontology page for The Netherlands (NL) was started up in January 2001. This initiative was taken to improve access to the field of gerontology in The Netherlands to stimulate and intensify international contacts for education, science and research in the domains of gerontology and geriatrics. (http://gerontologie.pagina.nl)

An article in the current issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism suggests that insomnia in older people may be partly caused by a lack of exposure to light. Dr. Kazuo Mishima of Akita University School of Medicine in Akita City, Japan, led a study of nursing home residents with insomnia and found that exposing them to more light improved their sleeping patterns and also increased their production of the melatonin, a hormone believed to help regulate sleep. Some research suggests melatonin production declines with age, and that melatonin supplements may combat insomnia.

Mishima's team compared sleeping patterns and melatonin levels among 10 nursing home residents with insomnia, 10 healthy residents of the same home, and 10 healthy college students. The elderly insomniacs initially had poorer sleep patterns than either of the other groups, and showed the lowest melatonin levels. The researchers then exposed the patients to 4 hours of bright, artificial light at midday for 4 weeks--roughly equal to the normal light exposure of the young control group. The investigators found that the extra light sent the elderly patients' melatonin production to a level similar to that of the college students, and improved their sleep quality.

ABC News reports on a program used in China to help care for the elderly. Able-bodied older people help seniors who cannot care for themselves, and the time they spend doing so is put in a "Time Bank." When they need help themselves, they will be able to draw from that bank and get help from others. Families used to provide care for older relatives, but many young people leave home in search of work in other parts of the country, and China's national "one child" policy means that there are fewer younger family members available to provide care.