Don’t let anybody steal your identity. Current fraud schemes to be on the lookout for include:

• People using your Medicare or health plan member number for reimbursements of services you never received
• People calling you to ask for your Medicare or health plan numbers
• People trying to bribe you to use a doctor you don’t know to get services you may not need

You can protect your identity and your benefits. Never give out your Social Security, Medicare, health plan numbers, or banking information to someone you don’t know.
Carefully review your Plan Statement to ensure all the information is correct.

Know that free services do not require you give your plan or Medicare number to
anyone. If you suspect fraud, report it immediately. Call 1-877-7SAFERX
(1-877-772-3379).

The 2023 LEGACY Awards, which recognize the contributions of Ventura County residents and organizations that dedicate their lives to helping older adults, people with disabilities, and their caregivers to live optimally, were presented on Wednesday morning at the Ventura County Area Agency on Aging’s Advisory Council meeting.

Since 2018, the Advisory Council’s Optimal Aging Committee has annually presented LEGACY Awards to a local business/organization, to Dementia Friendly business/organizations, and to community members/volunteers.

The 2023 winners are:

• Chef David’s Kitchen & Catering (business/organization)
• Maywood Acres Healthcare (Dementia Friendly business/organization)
• George Lopez (community member/volunteer)
• Andrea Ortiz (community member/volunteer)

Chef David’s Kitchen & Catering opened in Santa Paula in February 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic began. The owner, David Raigoza, quickly pivoted to take-out food, and earned a reputation for helping others. He has been called a local hero in Santa Paula, and has been doing all this while also battling a life-threatening cancer diagnosis.

Maywood Acres Healthcare is a 98-bed skilled nursing facility in Oxnard that cares for more than 25 long-term residents that have been diagnosed with some form of dementia. Maywood Acres has received “Dementia Friendly” status and has required all of its staff to take part in the training video.

George Lopez is a retired IRS tax professional who has used his knowledge of the subject to provide free tax services to people in need. And, for nearly 10 years, he has been a registered volunteer counselor with the California Department of Aging,

Andrea Ortiz volunteers with the OASIS program at Catholic Charities. As part of the program, she helps transport OASIS clients to their medical appointments, but also does much more.

The Ventura County Area Agency on Aging, a division of the County of Ventura’s Human Services Agency, is charged with the responsibility to promote the development and implementation of a comprehensive coordinated system of care that enables older individuals, children and adults with disabilities, and their caregivers to live in a community-based setting. The VCAAA advocates for the needs of those 60 years and older in the county, providing leadership and promoting citizen involvement in the planning process as well as in the delivery of services.

More information about the LEGACY Award and past winners can be found at www.vcaaa.org/legacy.

by National Institute on Aging

What is advance care planning (ACP)? ACP involves discussing and preparing for future decisions about your medical care if you become seriously ill or unable to communicate your wishes. It often involves preparing legal documents called advance directives, which provide instructions for medical care and only go into effect if you cannot communicate your own wishes. The two most common advance directives for health care include the living will and a durable power of attorney for health care.

Having meaningful conversations with your loved ones is the most important part of advance care planning. Research shows that you are more likely to get the care you want if you have conversations about your future medical treatment and put a plan in place. Having a plan in place may also help your loved ones grieve more easily and feel less burden, guilt, and depression. If you have been diagnosed with a condition, like dementia, advance care planning can give you a sense of control over an uncertain future and you can participate directly in decision-making about your future care.

Ready to take action?

Write down your responses to the following questions:

What is motivating me to create an advance care plan?

What do I hope to get out of my advance care plan?

Do I have any concerns or barriers holding me back from creating my plan?

Who can support me in creating my plan?

Thinking through these questions can help you prepare for the journey ahead.

Clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential (CHIP), a condition that changes the DNA of some blood cells and increases the risk for blood cancers and cardiovascular disease, may reduce a person’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. This finding from an NIA-funded study published recently in Nature Medicine may provide new insights into the role that blood cells play in brain health.

Blood cells live short lives and must be continuously replaced. The process of producing new blood cells is called hematopoiesis and occurs in the bone marrow. As blood cells are depleted, a pool of cells in the bone marrow called hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) multiply to replenish them. Normally, tens of thousands of HSCs grow up to be exact copies of the replaced blood cells. In CHIP, however, the genes of some hematopoietic stem cells change and produce slightly different blood cells.

People with CHIP can live for many years but have an increased risk for blood cancer and cardiovascular disease compared to people without CHIP. The condition is common in older adults, and researchers estimate that 10% to 30% of people over 70 years old have CHIP. While most research on this condition has focused on how it affects cardiovascular health, its effect on the brain is not yet well understood. To address this gap, a research team led by Stanford University scientists is exploring how CHIP influences Alzheimer’s risk in older adults.

In this study, the scientists analyzed blood samples from 1,362 people with Alzheimer’s and 4,368 people without the disease. Then they sequenced the DNA from the blood cells to determine who had CHIP. Remarkably, the researchers found that people with CHIP had a reduced risk of developing Alzheimer’s.

Next, the team sequenced the DNA from the microglia of the brains of eight people with CHIP. As the brain’s immune cells, microglia play a central role in brain function and health. In Alzheimer’s, microglia fail to perform their job, instead damaging neurons they are meant to protect. For seven of these individuals, the researchers found microglia in the brain that carried the same CHIP variant in the blood cells. While not conclusive, this suggests that some of these variant blood cells migrate to the brain and may support microglial function.

Overall, these findings suggest that CHIP may provide some protection from Alzheimer’s. Future studies will explore the differences between the brain’s immune cells that carry CHIP variants and those that do not. Understanding why CHIP is linked to reduced Alzheimer’s risk could uncover new insights into slowing the progression of the disease.

This research was supported in part by NIA grants AG053959, AG077443, AG066849, AG059727, and AG052409.

What are the different types of dementia?

Various neurodegenerative disorders and factors contribute to the development of dementia through a progressive and irreversible loss of neurons and brain functioning. Currently, there is no cure for any type of dementia.

Types of dementia include:

Alzheimer’s disease, the most common dementia diagnosis among older adults. It is caused by changes in the brain, including abnormal buildups of proteins known as amyloid plaques and tau tangles.

Frontotemporal dementia, a rare form of dementia that tends to occur in people younger than 60. It is associated with abnormal amounts or forms of the proteins tau and TDP-43.

Lewy body dementia, a form of dementia caused by abnormal deposits of the protein alpha-synuclein, called Lewy bodies.

Vascular dementia, a form of dementia caused by conditions that damage blood vessels in the brain or interrupt the flow of blood and oxygen to the brain.

Mixed dementia, a combination of two or more types of dementia. For example, through autopsy studies involving older adults who had dementia, researchers have identified that many people had a combination of brain changes associated with different forms of dementia.

Scientists are investigating how the underlying disease processes in different forms of dementia start and influence each other. They also continue to explore the variety of disorders and disease processes that contribute to dementia. For example, based on autopsy studies, researchers recently characterized another form of dementia known as LATE. Further knowledge gains in the underlying causes of dementia will help researchers better understand these conditions and develop more personalized prevention, treatment, and care strategies.

The Federal Trade Commission has issued its latest report to Congress on protecting older adults, which highlights key trends based on fraud reports by older adults, and the FTC’s multi-pronged efforts to combat the problem through law enforcement actions, rulemaking, and outreach and education programs.

In addition, the report calls on Congress to update the FTC Act in response to the Supreme Court’s 2021 ruling in the AMG Capital Management case, which severely limited the FTC’s ability to recover money that older adults and other consumers lose to scammers.

The report, Protecting Older Consumers, 2022-2023, A Report of the Federal Trade Commission, finds that older adults reported losing more than $1.6 billion to fraud in 2022.

Because the vast majority of frauds are not reported, this figure represents only a fraction of the overall cost of fraud to older consumers, which the FTC estimates to be as high as $48 billion. The report also finds that in 2022, older adults reported significantly higher losses to investment scams, business impersonation scams and government impersonation scams than they did in 2021:

As in prior years, the analysis of fraud reports received by the FTC in 2022 showed that adults aged 60 and over were substantially less likely to report losing money to fraud than adults aged 18-59. When they did report losing money, though, they tended to report losing substantially more than younger adults. Consumers 80 and older reported losing a median of $1,750 to fraud, while those in their seventies reported a median loss of $1,000, with both numbers increasing over 2021.

The analysis included in the report to Congress also found that adults 60 and older were more than six times as likely as adults aged 18 to 59 to report losing money to a tech support scam. Older adults were more than twice as likely to report a loss to a prize, lottery or sweepstakes scam, and 73 percent more likely to report losing money to a friend or family impersonation scam.

The report focuses on key actions the FTC has taken to protect older consumers, particularly in light of the Supreme Court’s AMG Capital decision. In 2022, the Commission issued a notice of proposed rulemaking on government and business impersonation, which is aimed at curbing a form of fraud that has resulted in tremendous losses for older consumers. A new rule would offer additional tools for the FTC to seek refunds for consumers harmed by these scams.

In addition, the report notes a number of enforcement actions that had a particular impact on older consumers, including cases against Publishers Clearing House for using dark patterns to mislead consumers into thinking that making a purchase would increase their chances of winning the company’s sweepstakes drawing; a company that placed more than a billion calls to consumers, including hundreds of robocalls and calls to consumers on the National Do-Not-Call Registry; a bogus credit card relief scheme; a timeshare exit scam; a company making false health claims about COVID prevention; and current and former major distributors for the multi-level marketing company doTERRA for making baseless claims about COVID treatments. The report highlights a number of ongoing law enforcement partnerships in which the FTC works with other federal agencies, along with state and local authorities, to take actions to protect older consumers.

Alzheimer’s disease is a brain disorder that slowly destroys memory and thinking skills, and, eventually, the ability to carry out the simplest tasks. In most people with Alzheimer’s, symptoms first appear later in life. Estimates vary, but experts suggest that more than 6 million Americans, most of them age 65 or older, may have dementia caused by Alzheimer’s.

Alzheimer’s disease is currently ranked as the seventh leading cause of death in the United States and is the most common cause of dementia among older adults.

Dementia is the loss of cognitive functioning — thinking, remembering, and reasoning — and behavioral abilities to such an extent that it interferes with a person’s daily life and activities. Dementia ranges in severity from the mildest stage, when it is just beginning to affect a person’s functioning, to the most severe stage, when the person must depend completely on others for help with basic activities of daily living.

The causes of dementia can vary, depending on the types of brain changes that may be taking place. Other dementias include Lewy body dementia, frontotemporal disorders, and vascular dementia. It is common for people to have mixed dementia — a combination of two or more types of dementia. For example, some people have both Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia.

Alzheimer’s disease is named after Dr. Alois Alzheimer. In 1906, Dr. Alzheimer noticed changes in the brain tissue of a woman who had died of an unusual mental illness. Her symptoms included memory loss, language problems, and unpredictable behavior. After she died, he examined her brain and found many abnormal clumps (now called amyloid plaques) and tangled bundles of fibers (now called neurofibrillary, or tau, tangles).

These plaques and tangles in the brain are still considered some of the main features of Alzheimer’s disease. Another feature is the loss of connections between neurons in the brain. Neurons transmit messages between different parts of the brain, and from the brain to muscles and organs in the body.