Latest news with #dementia
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Lopez: If people taking care of our elders get deported, will anyone take their place?
She rides three buses from her Panorama City home to her job as a caregiver for an 83-year-old Sherman Oaks woman with dementia, and lately she's been worrying about getting nabbed by federal agents. When I asked what she'll do if she gets deported, B., who's 60 and asked me to withhold her name, paused to compose herself. 'I don't want to cry,' she said, but losing her $19 hourly job would be devastating, because she sends money to the Philippines to support her family. The world is getting grayer each day thanks to an epic demographic wave. In California, 22% of the state's residents will be 65 and older by 2040, up by 14% from 2020. 'At a time where it seems fewer and fewer of us want to work in long-term care, the need has never been greater,' Harvard healthcare policy analyst David C. Grabowski told The Times' Emily Alpert Reyes in January. So how will millions of aging Americans be able to afford care for physical and cognitive decline, especially given President Trump's big beautiful proposed cuts to Medicaid, which covers about two-thirds of nursing home residents? And who will take care of those who don't have family members who can step up? There are no good answers at the moment. Deporting care providers might make sense if there were a plan to make the jobs more attractive to homegrown replacements, but none of us would bet a day-old doughnut on that happening. Nationally and in California, the vast majority of workers in care facilities and private settings are citizens. But employers were already having trouble recruiting and keeping staff to do jobs that are low-paying and difficult, and now Trump administration policies could further shrink the workforce. Earlier this year, the administration ordered an end to programs offering temporary protected status and work authorization, and the latest goal in Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration is to make 3,000 arrests daily. Read more: 7 million people have Alzheimer's. Why is the Trump administration derailing research? 'People are worried about the threat of deportation … but also about losing whatever job they have and being unable to secure other work,' said Aquilina Soriano Versoza, director of the Pilipino Workers Center, who estimated that roughly half of her advocacy group's members are undocumented. In the past, she said, employers didn't necessarily ask for work authorization documents, but that's changing. And she fears that given the political climate, some employers will 'feel like they have impunity to exploit workers,' many of whom are women from Southeast Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, Mexico and Latin America. That may already be happening. 'We've seen a lot of fear, and we've seen workers who no longer want to pursue their cases' when it comes to fighting wage theft, said Yvonne Medrano, an employment rights lawyer with Bet Tzedek, a legal services nonprofit. Medrano said the workers are worried that pursuing justice in the courts will expose them to greater risk of getting booted out of the country. In one case, she said, a worker was owed a final paycheck for a discontinued job, but the employer made a veiled threat, warning that showing up to retrieve it could be costly. Given the hostile environment, some workers are giving up and going home. 'We've seen an increase in workers self-deporting,' Medrano said. Conditions for elder care workers were bleak enough before Trump took office. Two years ago, I met with documented and undocumented caregivers and although they're in the healthcare business, some of them didn't have health insurance for themselves. Read more: They take care of aging adults, live in cramped quarters and make less than minimum wage I met with a cancer survivor and caregiver who was renting a converted garage without a kitchen. And I visited an apartment in Panorama City where Josephine Biclar, in her early 70s, was struggling with knee and shoulder injuries while still working as a caregiver. Biclar was sharing a cramped studio with two other caregivers. They used room dividers to carve their space into sleeping quarters. When I checked with Biclar this week, she said four women now share the same space. All of them have legal status, but because of low wages and the high cost of housing, along with the burden of supporting families abroad, they can't afford better living arrangements. B. and another care provider share a single room, at a cost of $400 apiece, from a homeowner in Panorama City. B. said her commute takes more than an hour each way, and during her nine-hour shift, her duties for her 83-year-old client include cooking, feeding and bathing. She's only working three days a week at the moment and said additional jobs are hard to come by given her status and the immigration crackdown. She was upset that for the last two months, she couldn't afford to send any money home. Retired UCLA scholar Fernando Torres-Gil, who served as President Clinton's assistant secretary on aging, said 'fear and chaos' in the elder care industry are not likely to end during this presidential administration. And given budget constraints, California will be hard-pressed to do more for caregivers and those who need care. But he thinks the growing crisis could eventually lead to an awakening. 'We're going to see more and more older folks without long-term care,' Torres-Gil said. 'Hopefully, Democrats and Republicans will get away from talking about open borders and talk about selective immigration' that serves the country's economic and social needs. The U.S. is not aging alone, Torres-Gil pointed out. The same demographic shifts and healthcare needs are hitting the rest of the world, and other countries may open their doors to workers the U.S. sends packing. 'As more baby boomers' join the ranks of those who need help, he said, 'we might finally understand we need some kind of leadership.' It's hard not to be cynical these days, but I'd like to think he's onto something. Meanwhile, I'm following leads and working different angles on this topic. If you're having trouble finding or paying for care, or if you're on the front lines as a provider, I'm hoping you will drop me a line. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
New York Times
10 hours ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Her Famous Mother Was Always Inaccessible. Then She Developed Dementia.
HOW TO LOSE YOUR MOTHER: A Daughter's Memoir, by Molly Jong-Fast 'Pour one out for me,' Molly Jong-Fast writes in 'How to Lose Your Mother,' her memoir of 'the worst year of my life,' 2023, in which her stepfather dies, her husband is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and her famous, forever unreachable mother succumbs to dementia. But she's not referring to all that: She's referring to one sentence in the best-selling 1973 novel 'Fear of Flying,' which made Erica Jong into a second-wave feminist icon, offering a woman's perspective on no-strings-attached sex, or what she called the 'zipless fuck.' 'Think about being the offspring of the person who wrote that,' Jong-Fast writes. In the memoir, the political journalist and novelist describes her childhood with a mother who had more time for media interviews and dinner parties than she had for her child. Jong 'went from man to man trying to find an identity,' the daughter writes, while leaving her with a nanny Jong then fires when it suits her. At times 'I bristled at the whole project of this memoir,' Jong-Fast writes: 'a daughter trying to come to terms with the loss of a mother. But I never had Erica Jong. How can you lose something you never had?' When her mother did pay attention, her affections were erratic. Jong-Fast 'started going to Venice as a child because my mother had a lover there,' she writes, an Italian man who was married to a German countess. Jong would spontaneously invite her daughter into her bed to watch TV and eat Ben & Jerry's, and take her on budget-less shopping sprees at Bergdorf's. 'Mom had that fairy dust,' Jong-Fast recalls thinking at the time. 'There was just a feeling with Mom that anything could happen. … She was singularly the most glamorous and inaccessible person I'd ever known.' As a teenager Jong-Fast copes with the chaos via drugs and alcohol, then gets sober at 19. When she tells her mother, a lifelong alcoholic and narcissist, that she wants to go to rehab 'because I'm going to die,' Jong replies: 'I think you're being overdramatic.' (She has a similar response decades later, when Jong-Fast nearly dies in childbirth.) At the same time, Jong-Fast says, 'she was always so proud of me, always so delighted by everything I did.' But this attempt at magnanimity feels at odds with her suggestion that Jong needed her to succeed, lest the child's failure reflect poorly on the mother herself. Having overcome a learning disability to end up in a profession similar to her mother's, Jong-Fast has written a memoir that feels like an effort to transcend her mother's narrative with her own, while still remaining deeply bound to the family form. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Fast Company
11 hours ago
- Business
- Fast Company
Want to lower your dementia risk? Start by stressing less
The probability of any American having dementia in their lifetime may be far greater than previously thought. For instance, a 2025 study that tracked a large sample of American adults across more than three decades found that their average likelihood of developing dementia between ages 55 to 95 was 42%, and that figure was even higher among women, Black adults and those with genetic risk. Now, a great deal of attention is being paid to how to stave off cognitive decline in the aging American population. But what is often missing from this conversation is the role that chronic stress can play in how well people age from a cognitive standpoint, as well as everybody's risk for dementia. We are professors at Penn State in the Center for Healthy Aging, with expertise in health psychology and neuropsychology. We study the pathways by which chronic psychological stress influences the risk of dementia and how it influences the ability to stay healthy as people age. Recent research shows that Americans who are currently middle-aged or older report experiencing more frequent stressful events than previous generations. A key driver behind this increase appears to be rising economic and job insecurity, especially in the wake of the 2007-2009 Great Recession and ongoing shifts in the labor market. Many people stay in the workforce longer due to financial necessity, as Americans are living longer and face . Therefore, it may be more important than ever to understand the pathways by which stress influences cognitive aging. Social isolation and stress Although everyone experiences some stress in daily life, some people experience stress that is more intense, persistent or prolonged. It is this relatively chronic stress that is most consistently linked with poorer health. In a recent review paper, our team summarized how chronic stress is a hidden but powerful factor underlying cognitive aging, or the speed at which your cognitive performance slows down with age. It is hard to overstate the impact of stress on your cognitive health as you age. This is in part because your psychological, behavioral and biological responses to everyday stressful events are closely intertwined, and each can amplify and interact with the other. For instance, living alone can be stressful— particularly for older adults —and being isolated makes it more difficult to live a healthy lifestyle, as well as to detect and get help for signs of cognitive decline. Moreover, stressful experiences—and your reactions to them—can make it harder to sleep well and to engage in other healthy behaviors, like getting enough exercise and maintaining a healthy diet. In turn, insufficient sleep and a lack of physical activity can make it harder to cope with stressful experiences. Stress is often missing from dementia prevention efforts A robust body of research highlights the importance of at least 14 different factors that relate to your risk of Alzheimer's disease, a common and devastating form of dementia and other forms of dementia. Although some of these factors may be outside of your control, such as diabetes or depression, many of these factors involve things that people do, such as physical activity, healthy eating and social engagement. What is less well-recognized is that chronic stress is intimately interwoven with all of these factors that relate to dementia risk. Our work and research by others that we reviewed in our recent paper demonstrate that chronic stress can affect brain function and physiology, influence mood and make it harder to maintain healthy habits. Yet, dementia prevention efforts rarely address stress. Avoiding stressful events and difficult life circumstances is typically not an option. Where and how you live and work plays a major role in how much stress you experience. For example, people with lower incomes, less education or those living in disadvantaged neighborhoods often face more frequent stress and have fewer forms of support—such as nearby clinics, access to healthy food, reliable transportation or safe places to exercise or socialize—to help them manage the challenges of aging As shown in recent work on brain health in rural and underserved communities, these conditions can shape whether people have the chance to stay healthy as they age. Over time, the effects of stress tend to build up, wearing down the body's systems and shaping long-term emotional and social habits. Lifestyle changes to manage stress and lessen dementia risk The good news is that there are multiple things that can be done to slow or prevent dementia, and our review suggests that these can be enhanced if the role of stress is better understood. Whether you are a young, midlife or an older adult, it is not too early or too late to address the implications of stress on brain health and aging. Here are a few ways you can take direct actions to help manage your level of stress: Follow lifestyle behaviors that can improve healthy aging. These include: following a healthy diet, engaging in physical activity and getting enough sleep. Even small changes in these domains can make a big difference. Prioritize your mental health and well-being to the extent you can. Things as simple as talking about your worries, asking for support from friends and family and going outside regularly can be immensely valuable. If your doctor says that you or someone you care about should follow a new health care regimen, or suggests there are signs of cognitive impairment, ask them what support or advice they have for managing related stress. If you or a loved one feel socially isolated, consider how small shifts could make a difference. For instance, research suggests that adding just one extra interaction a day —even if it's a text message or a brief phone call —can be helpful, and that even interactions with people you don't know well, such as at a coffee shop or doctor's office, can have meaningful benefits. Walkable neighborhoods, lifelong learning A 2025 study identified stress as one of 17 overlapping factors that affect the odds of developing any brain disease, including stroke, late-life depression and dementia. This work suggests that addressing stress and overlapping issues such as loneliness may have additional health benefits as well. However, not all individuals or families are able to make big changes on their own. Research suggests that community-level and workplace interventions can reduce the risk of dementia. For example, safe and walkable neighborhoods and opportunities for social connection and lifelong learning—such as through community classes and events—have the potential to reduce stress and promote brain health. Importantly, researchers have estimated that even a modest delay in disease onset of Alzheimer's would save hundreds of thousands of dollars for every American affected. Thus, providing incentives to companies who offer stress management resources could ultimately save money as well as help people age more healthfully. In addition, stress related to the stigma around mental health and aging can discourage people from seeking support that would benefit them. Even just thinking about your risk of dementia can be stressful in itself. Things can be done about this, too. For instance, normalizing the use of hearing aids and integrating reports of perceived memory and mental health issues into routine primary care and workplace wellness programs could encourage people to engage with preventive services earlier. Although research on potential biomedical treatments is ongoing and important, there is currently no cure for Alzheimer's disease. However, if interventions aimed at reducing stress were prioritized in guidelines for dementia prevention, the benefits could be far-reaching, resulting in both delayed disease onset and improved quality of life for millions of people.
CBC
a day ago
- Health
- CBC
Coming home: Elders return to Nunavut for care after years of living in the south
Three years ago, Eric Anoee Jr., along with his family, made the difficult decision to move his brother Bernard from Arviat, Nunavut to Embassy West, a seniors' living facility in Ottawa. Bernard had just been diagnosed with dementia and there was no 24-hour care available to him in Nunavut. As Anoee Jr. describes it, they had no choice. But after three years, Bernard is coming home. He's one of a handful of Nunavut elders who are being transferred back to the territory to live in the new 24-hour elder care facility in Rankin Inlet which opened this month. Last week, Anoee Jr. received a call that Bernard would be one of the elders sent to live in the new home. "It's been a long time waiting," Anoee Jr. said. "Obviously Ottawa is very far away from home and we can't see him ... so we were very excited about Bernard coming home." Although Rankin Inlet is still a short flight away, Anoee Jr. said there's a world of difference between Ottawa and Nunavut. "When I visit the Embassy West, I can kind of feel that the Inuit residents feel out of place," he said. "They know that they're far away from home. Coming back to Nunavut is a going to be a really good thing for patients." Elders coming back In a statement in the Legislative Assembly this week, Health Minister John Main said the first few elders have already arrived at the new care home in Rankin Inlet, which has 24 beds. He said three or four elders will arrive every week for the next few weeks. "A state-of-the art facility, the first of its kind in Nunavut, awaits them with a culturally enriching, safe, and home-like environment," Main said. He also said the health department has placed a "strong focus" on employing Inuit at the home. "We know that the elders who will live there want to hear Inuktitut being spoken. They want Inuit values and culture reflected in the activities, and in the food they are served," Main said. Anoee Jr. remembers when he and his other brother were tasked with moving Bernard out of Arviat. "It was a pretty long, emotional journey having to move him to southern Canada," he said. Despite not having full-time care available in Arviat, Anoee Jr. said the whole community helped to support Bernard. "I found out that the support system is there even though it's not a whole lot. The health department really helped us there, and the family and community. If he was wandering away from town our friend would tell us to pick him up." It was also the first time Anoee Jr. had experienced caring for someone with dementia. "It's very hard to have a loved one suffering from dementia," he said.
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Seven star gives heartbreaking family update following her exit from the network: 'This is a pain so unbearable'
Sonia Marinelli has revealed her mother is dying following a years-long battle with dementia. The former 7News Melbourne weather presenter, 41, announced the heartbreaking news to Instagram on Friday. Alongside a lengthy caption, she shared a photo of herself and two of her children holding hands with her mother as she lay in hospital. 'My mum is dying and will soon take her last breath. It's been a long farewell,' she penned alongside the photograph. 'The grieving process and loss started many years ago when it became clear that dementia was robbing us of the mum we knew and loved. From A-list scandals and red carpet mishaps to exclusive pictures and viral moments, subscribe to the DailyMail's new showbiz newsletter to stay in the loop. Sonia continued: 'Her brain became so fragile that this was inevitable. Even so, this is a pain so unbearable, like nothing I have experienced. 'Her body is strong and she continues to fight. True to her spirit right to the end. She was always so determined and carried herself with dignity. I adored my mum. 'Please keep my dad, sister, brother and her grandchildren in your thoughts as mum makes this transition into the afterlife. 'I will stay snuggled up next to her warm body, where I always felt profoundly loved and safe, until the end.' Sonia's famous friends and former co-stars flocked to the comments to offer their support and condolences during the difficult time. AFL WAG Bec Judd wrote, 'I'm sorry darling,' alongside a series of red love hearts. Former 7News Melbourne co-stars Estelle Gnepink and Melina Sarris also left messages beneath the post. 'Oh beautiful Son… keeping you and your mum in my heart today,' Estelle wrote. Sonia's famous friends and former co-stars flocked to the comments to offer their support and condolences during the difficult time 'I'm so so sorry for the pain you and your family are currently in. Enjoy those snuggles with your mama.' Melina added: 'So sorry Son. Sending you so much love and strength.' Seven Chief Sports Presenter Rebecca Maddern said: 'Oh my sweetheart, one of the hardest things on earth to do. I'm crying for you. Hold her tight xxxx.' Sunrise star Teegan Dolling added: 'Thinking of you and your family Son. Mum's are so very special! Hope you're replaying all the happy wonderful memories xxx.' Nine star Neary Ty wrote: 'Ohhh son, I'm so sorry. Thinking of you and your beautiful family.' The tragic news comes after Sonia announced her departure from the Seven Melbourne newsroom amid the network's recent staffing carnage. The weekend weather presenter announced in February she would be leaving her role after three years in the position. 'I am stepping away from my role at 7News. My husband and I have decided to make a sea-change,' she said in a statement. 'We will be taking our four young children on an adventure up the east coast. This decision has been years in the making. 'After spending most of my TV news career talking about our weather, I'm excited to get out and actually enjoy it with those I love most.' Sonia and her husband Chris Stanko share four kids—Roman, 10, Ava, eight, Easton, seven, and Vivienne, six.
