During the past three decades there has been a dramatic, 130-fold increase in knee replacement surgeries, particularly among individuals in their 50s, a Finnish study found.
Knee replacement cost – cost of knee replacement surgery.
After reading about the dramatic increase in the number of knee replacements I did a Google search for “average cost knee replacement” without the quotation marks in the search string. At the top of page one was the second link above.
Taiwan anyone?
A study in the British Medical Journal lit up the Internet last week with the conclusion that cognitive decline begins at age 45. While it’s true that some innate skills like memory and speed of reasoning fall off as we age, other aspects of intelligence related to learning and experience actually improve.
via Patricia Cohen: The Advantages of the Middle-Age Brain | TIME Ideas | TIME.com.
Positive proof the older brain improves with time. I found an article on some positive aspects of the aging brain.
Now if I could only remember where I put my car keys…
Markers of B12 insufficiency all predicted lower global cognitive scores over nearly five years of follow-up, Christine C. Tangney, PhD, of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, and colleagues found.
Older women who experience a hip fracture have a twofold increase in mortality risk in the first year after the fracture, researchers found.
During the 12 months following the fracture, 16.9% of the women died, compared with 8.4% of controls, for an odds ratio of 2.3 (95% CI 1.9 to 2.8), according to Erin S. LeBlanc, MD, of Kaiser Permanente Northwest in Portland, Ore., and colleagues. They researchers adjusted for potential confounders such as age, bone mineral density (BMD), and coexisting conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, and stroke.
And the increased mortality risk during the first year remained after further adjustment for specific hip fracture risk factors such as total hip BMD (OR 2.4, 95% CI 1.9 to 3.1), the researchers reported online in Archives of Internal Medicine.
Mild cognitive impairment denotes abnormal cognitive decline
Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians.
I actually got this one right.
Why We Don’t Take Care of Ourselves
Negative stereotypes about aging lead to the adoption of less healthy lifestyle choices that turn the negative stereotypes into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Take Home Message:
Watch for signs of negative belief systems about aging in medical records.
Especially in the older population.
NIHSeniorHealth: Alcohol Use and Older Adults – Table of contents
This is a nice little informational website from the NIH. The first video features a 77 year young woman who developed alcoholism late in life after a lung cancer diagnosis. She got up to a liter of wine daily when it became a problem.
Underwriting Quick Notes:
Memantine seems to improve global clinical status and behavioural symptoms of patients with mild to moderate DLB, and might be an option for treatment of these patients.
lifeunderwriter.net 
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