Half of US Seniors Suffer from High Blood Pressure

The web site SeniorJournal.com cites that figure in an August 28 article that highlights the September issue of the "Harvard Heart Letter," which focuses on the very latest medical research into the causes of this widespread chronic disease.

The SeniorJournal.com piece includes the "Ten Steps Senior Citizens Can Take to Control High Blood Pressure," (excerpted below) as well as a good basic primer on high blood pressure - or "hypertension" - and how to recognize prevent or control it.

The September Harvard Heart Letter (available by subscription only from the Harvard University web site ) includes a feature article about new research into the link between the effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and heart disease, as well as articles on the following topics:

• Artery-opening stents and blood clots
• Your heart's ejection fraction
• Green tea: Not heart medicine
• Pain after stroke
• Can I take niacin if I have diabetes?

10 Steps to Control High Blood Pressure:

1. Check it. You can’t do much about your blood pressure unless you know what it is. Your doctor should check it at every visit. Measuring at home between visits is even better.

2. Get moving. Exercise can lower blood pressure by 10 points, prevent the onset of high blood pressure, or let you reduce your dosage of blood pressure medications.

3. Eat right. A diet for better blood pressure emphasizes fruits, vegetables, low-fat dairy products, whole grains, poultry, fish, and nuts.

CMS Approves Medicare Special Needs Plan for South Carolina

Medicare beneficiaries in South Carolina living with some common chronic diseases will have a new and innovative health insurance option beginning in 2007.

Baltimore-based XLHealth announced Wednesday (August 9) that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has given the company conditional approval to offer its "Care Improvement Plus" Medicare Advantage-Special Needs plan in South Carolina. The plan provides comprehensive health insurance coverage designed specifically for individuals being treated for diabetes, heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and end-stage renal disease (ESRD). Care Improvement Plus is the first such plan approved for the state.

According to a press release issued by the company, pending formal CMS approval, Care Improvement Plus will offer all Medicare covered services, a tailored Medicare Part D drug benefit, disease management services, and additional services not typically covered by Medicare to approximately 160,000 eligible Medicare beneficiaries residing in South Carolina.

Special needs plans such as the one offered by XLHealth were created as part of the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, the same legislation that created the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit. Medicare leaders hope that offering plans specifically geared towards meeting the needs of people with chronic health problems will lead to better health outcomes for those people and lower costs for the Medicare system overall. Helping beneficiaries better manage their conditions and avoid costly hospital stays is key to the success of the plans.

Individuals who get their Medicare coverage through a special needs plan will get their Part A (hospitalization), Part B (ambulatory care and Doctors visits) and Part D (prescription drug coverage) in a single package. In addition, the Care Improvement Plus special needs plan will provide other benefits designed specifically to help beneficiaries and their doctors better manage their chronic conditions such as nursing support, health education, and medication and appointment reminders.

“I know that better methods of managing chronic diseases are the key in South Carolina both to improve the quality of life of our senior population and to reduce the cost of their healthcare," said Lieutenant Governor André Bauer, who leads the State Office on Aging. "I am excited about the potential the Care Improvement Plus plan has to help with both of these important goals. I look forward to having my Office on Aging work with XLHealth on research models to demonstrate the effectiveness of this outcomes-based, disease management approach.”

Marketing efforts for the plan will begin in October, with open enrollment beginning November 15. Coverage for people who sign up for the plan will begin on January 1 of 2007.

South Carolina Outstanding Older Worker for 2006 Announced

The Anderson Independent-Mail newspaper reported Tuesday (August 8) that one of its own, 76 year old press room supervisor George Mize, has been named South Carolina's Outstanding Older Worker for 2006 by the non-profit organization Experience Works.

According to the article by the Independent-Mail's Samantha Epps, Mize has worked at the Anderson paper since 1944, serving at various times as a photographer, editor, advertising and sales manager. Currently, Mize supervises the production of the plates from which each days paper is printed.

Those years of experience make Mize an invaluable resource for the company, according to the Independent-Mail's President and Publisher, Fred L. Foster.

"He is an employee any company would be fortunate to have," Mr. Foster said. "George has always done his best to keep up with the many changes in printing technology. His more than six decades of capable and loyal service is part of the tradition of our newspaper."

It's a trend that's gaining attention nationwide, as America's workforce ages, more and more people are staying in the workforce longer, either from choice or necessity.

A July feature on the ANS web site highlighted stories from the Boston Globe and the Miami Herald that looked at how older workers are changing the face of the 21st centurt workplace.

That feature can be found in the ANS July archives.

Experience Works is a national, nonprofit organization that provides training and employment services for mature workers.  Established in 1965 as Green Thumb, and renamed Experience Works in 2002, the organization reaches more than 125,000 mature individuals in all 50 states and Puerto Rico each year. 

The Outstanding Older Worker recognition program is part of Experience Works’ national effort to raise awareness of the contributions made by older individuals and to break down barriers associated with the hiring of older workers.  All of the outstanding older workers will attend Experience Works Prime Time Awards week in Washington, D.C., in September where America’s Oldest Worker will be announced.

Clicking on the organization's logo pictured at the left will take you to their web site, ww.experienceworks.org.  

Aging Community and Native Leaders Make An Important Connection at Summer School of Gerontology

 Chronic Health Problems are killing South Carolina’s Native American elders:

The overall health of Native American elders in South Carolina is at or near crisis level, according to Barbara MorningStar Paul, Native Affairs Coordinator for the State Commission for Minority Affairs (CMA). Worse, the issue is largely hidden from view.

The vast majority of the problems faced by the state’s aging Indian population can be expressed by a single statistic, according to Paul. The average age of Native American adults in South Carolina is going down, and chronic illnesses such as diabetes, cancer and heart disease, exacerbated by poverty and poor living conditions are a major reason why.That’s in marked contrast to South Carolina’s population at large, which is seeing an increase in average lifespan driven by the baby boom generation and a huge influx of retirees from other parts of the country. The US Administration on Aging estimates that nationwide, 15% of the total population was over 65 in 2005. Although Mature Adults Count’s latest data shows that South Carolinians 65 and older make up 12.4% of our state, Paul said only 7.2% of Native Americans in our state reach 65.

“Our elders are precious to us, and we know we are losing them young,” says Paul. “We are losing many of them before age 65.”

One stumbling block in the road to addressing the problem is getting accurate numbers and assessments about the health of the Native American population statewide. While Paul’s extensive contacts and travels around the state give her a bird’s eye view, hard statistical data that researchers and policy makers can use to attack the problem are harder to come by.

Although there are 25 different tribal groups and organizations active in the state, including five state-recognized tribes, three state-recognized groups and one special interest organization; only one, The Catawba Indian Nation in York County, is a federally-recognized tribal entity with access to federal funds and programs that address Native American health issues. And since the primary source for data on Native American health is through the federal Indian Health Service (IHS), only the 1,000-1,500 members of the Catawba tribe are represented in most federal studies and research into the issues.

But there’s no real reason to think that the health issues of the state’s other estimated 25,000 Native American Indians is very different from that of the Catawba members, says Paul. Nonetheless, part of the CMA’s strategy for addressing the health disparities that are killing tribal elders includes working to gather better data about the health of this population. The agency recently hired a full time researcher. That should help with planning for a more accurate assessment of the need for better services in the more isolated Native American communities around the state, said Paul. “Our dream is to do a more accurate assessment.”

Worlds Apart - Fear and Lack of Understanding Cause Barriers to Accessing Services:

Aside from better research into the causes of the health crisis that is killing Native elders, a large part of the solution to this problem lies simply in helping increase their access to such established services as those funded under the Older Americans Act that are available for all older South Carolinians. Those services are coordinated by the Lt. Governor’s Office on Aging and have a proven track record for improving the health outcomes of the state’s frail elderly. Older Americans Act services such as congregate and home delivered meals, homecare and respite are delivered at the community level by county aging organizations, senior centers and other non-profit groups. The problem, says Paul, is getting those service providers and the Indian groups together.

The troubled history of relations between South Carolina’s first citizens and the descendants of the European settlers has, unfortunately, left many in the current generation of Native American elders in the shadows, unable – or in some cases unwilling – to access the type of government-sponsored supports that white and African American citizens use routinely. Only one Senior Center geared specifically towards Native American elders exists in the state – on the Catawba Reservation in Rock Hill.

Fear is a large part of it, says Paul because generations of racism and oppression - both overt and under the radar screen – have left many elders reluctant to even acknowledge their heritage outside of their close-knit family and tribal groups. There’s a reluctance to be involved with anything that is connected with the government that can be hard for non-Indians to understand, according to Paul. “We know we have seniors out there that are hungry,” she says, “but it’s a big barrier to them seeking out services.”

There’s also a lack of awareness on the part of service providers. Many people just assume that all Native Americans live on reservations and are “taken care of” by the federal government, not realizing that the actual picture of how and where Native Americans live is much more complicated. Others are simply unaware the native groups exist, even when they are right under their noses.

Paul tells the story of stopping in a local government office building to ask for directions to the headquarters of the state-recognized Santee Indian Tribe. “No one in the office had ever even heard of them,” says Paul. When she got back in her car and finally made it to the Santee’s office, Paul realized it was less than a mile away from the place she had stopped at to ask for directions.

“You would be amazed at the number of well-educated people I have talked to about this that say ‘you mean we still have Indians in South Carolina?’” says Paul.

Building Bridges:

The process of raising awareness about the health of Native American elders on both sides of this cultural divide is critical, according to Lt. Governor André Bauer, head of the State Office on Aging.

“It’s a two-way street that involves making sure elders are aware of the services that are available to them, while we simultaneously work to make sure that the people working to provide senior services at all levels are aware of this population and actively engaged in the challenge of improving their health. Our office is committed to making that happen,” says Lt. Governor Bauer.

Working with Paul and leaders of the Waccamaw Indian People, a state-recognized tribe based in Horry County, the Lt. Governor’s Office on Aging is using its annual Summer School of Gerontology to raise awareness of this issue in the state’s senior community. Every summer for the past 30 years, professionals, advocates, policymakers and others involved in aging issues in South Carolina have come together at the Summer School to earn continuing education credits for their professional careers and to share their experiences and ideas.

This year, a demonstration of Native American dances and culture will be a featured part of Summer School. Also, Barbara Morningstar Paul’s class on The Invisible Population - Native Americans in South Carolina, which will be held from 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, August 23, will provide an in-depth discussion of Native American issues.

“We see this as an important first step in changing attitudes and bringing awareness of this population to the forefront,” says Lt. Governor Bauer. “We are working hard to build a future South Carolina that is prepared to meet the challenges and take advantage of the opportunities that are going to be presented to us by a rapidly aging population, and we’re committed to making sure that the descendents of our first citizens are a part of that future.”

Download a printable version of this article in Adobe PDF format.

First Aid For Extreme Heat Emergencies (From FEMA)

Heat kills by pushing the human body beyond its limits. In extreme heat and high humidity, evaporation is slowed and the body must work extra hard to maintain a normal temperature.

Most heat disorders occur because the victim has been overexposed to heat or has over-exercised for his or her age and physical condition. Older adults, young children, and those who are sick or overweight are more likely to succumb to extreme heat.

Conditions that can induce heat-related illnesses include stagnant atmospheric conditions and poor air quality. Consequently, people living in urban areas may be at greater risk from the effects of a prolonged heat wave than those living in rural areas. Also, asphalt and concrete store heat longer and gradually release heat at night, which can produce higher nighttime temperatures known as the "urban heat island effect."