“Advocates for the elderly in California say recent budget cuts are dramatically affecting the ability of social service programs to keep up with demand” at a time when “the state’s elderly population - and the incidents of elder abuse - are exploding,” NPR reports. One example is Contra Costa County, where the Aging and Adult Services Program laid off two-thirds of the staff who “investigate abuse complaints of elderly and dependent adults.” The county is now “turning over virtually all of its self-neglect cases to some other agency - often, the police.” The Contra Costa situation is “so severe that the county grand jury recently concluded that Adult Protective Services no longer has the resources to carry out its legal mandate to investigate physical and financial abuse complaints.” This comes at a time when complaints of elder abuse are on the rise. According to “national studies,” only “1 in 5 elder abuse cases is reported” (Siler, 6/3).

Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell is “proposing to allow an additional 30,000 seniors to enroll in the state’s prescription-drug program for older residents, a move called essential to helping them survive the difficult economic times,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. Rendell says he is “working with House Democrats to push through legislation that would raise the current income eligibility limits for seniors to qualify for the state’s popular PACENET program.” He says the expansion should be “‘a slam-dunk’ since it won’t cost taxpayers a dime.” The money for the program, which is “funded by the Pennsylvania lottery” would be augmented by “requiring pharmaceutical companies to give the state the same drug rebates that it gives to the federal government’s Medicaid program.”

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As lawmakers return to Washington to tackle health care reform, AARP is pressing them to improve the country’s long-term care system as a part of comprehensive reform. Millions of older Americans rely on Medicaid for the long-term services and supports they need, but the program’s bias toward institutional care prevents most from getting more affordable care where they want it: their own homes.

“It’s shameful that so many people are forced into nursing homes when we could improve their quality of life and typically spend less money by caring for them at home,” said AARP Executive Vice President Nancy LeaMond. “As we overhaul the health care system, we need to build on win-win solutions that expand choices and could save billions of dollars.”

Under current law, Medicaid-the largest payer of long-term care-has an institutional bias. While states must provide coverage of nursing facility services, they do not have to cover most home and community based services (HCBS). On average, Medicaid can pay for three older people in HCBS for every one person in a nursing home. Despite this, HCBS is often one of the first programs to lose state funding during an economic downturn, often forcing more people into higher cost nursing facilities even if they would prefer to remain at home.

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Many childhood cancer survivors aren’t following recommended guidelines on screenings for second cancers as they reach adulthood.

And some survivors suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder years after beating their disease, two new studies show.

Not following screening guidelines can be costly because childhood cancer survivors are more likely to develop a new cancer, and to die of that new cancer, than the regular population, the researchers noted. The findings were presented during a Monday press conference at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting, in Orlando, Fla.

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Actinic keratoses are sun-damaged rough patches or lesions on the skin - often pink and scaly - that doctors have long believed can turn into a form of skin cancer known as squamous cell carcinoma.

Now researchers at Brown University, the Veterans Administration Medical Centers in Providence and Oklahoma City, and others have determined that actinic keratoses appear responsible for a larger spectrum of skin cancers than previously thought. Their research is highlighted in the current edition of Cancer.

“We found some interesting things,” said Dr. Martin Weinstock, the paper’s lead author. Weinstock, chief of dermatology at the VA Medical Center in Providence, is professor of dermatology and community health at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development funded the study.

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Cult skincare brand SKIN.NY(R) have issued legal proceedings against beauty giant, Boots the Chemist, for misleading the public. In a recent blaze of publicity, Boots the Chemist claimed that their much-lauded Boots No.7 Protect and Perfect was the first anti-wrinkle cream to be proven to be effective in clinical trials. This is untrue. In fact, SKIN.NY Radical Restructure Complex(R) containing QAL-100(R) was the first complex skin cream with proven clinical trials published in the BJD over 6 years earlier in October 2003.

SKIN.NY(R) also gives faster, broader skincare results. SKIN.NY(R) achieves more in three months than Boots No.7 does in six - SKIN.NY(R) delivers an additional 10% in wrinkle reduction. In fact the “inactive” control cream used in the SKIN.NY(R) study was as effective in 3 months as the Boots Serum was in a year. This also makes SKIN.NY(R) more cost-effective - three month’s supply of SKIN.NY(R) costs GBP99.00 whereas six month’s of Boots No.7 is GBP197.50.

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