WEDNESDAY, June 29, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- There's a shortage of nursing home beds for the elderly in America due to a severe staffing crisis that has caused long-term care facilities to cut back on new admissions, new research shows.Three out of five nursing homes (61%) have limited new admissions due to staffing shortages, according to a survey conducted by the American Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/NCAL) of 759 nursing home providers.And nearly three out of four (73%) are concerned that they’ll have to close their facilities over staffing problems, the survey found."We project that more than 400 nursing homes could close this year due to this workforce and economic crisis," said Beth Martino, senior vice president of public affairs for the...

WEDNESDAY, June 29, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- When former professional Major League Soccer (MLS) player Scott Vermillion died at age 44, he had stage 2 CTE, his family announced Tuesday. He is the first former MLS player diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Vermillion died from an accidental overdose in December 2020."This disease destroys families, and not just football families," said Dave Vermillion, Scott's father. "We want others to realize this can happen to anyone who is exposed to repetitive head trauma because we didn't even consider CTE when my son was struggling."The family released the findings from Vermillion's brain study through the Concussion Legacy Foundation (CLF) to help raise awareness about CTE in soccer. Boston University CTE Center researchers...

WEDNESDAY, June 29, 2022 (American Heart Association News) -- Proper sleep is essential, and a widely used scoring system for heart and brain health is being redefined to reflect that.Since 2010, the American Heart Association has said seven modifiable components – maintaining a healthy weight, not smoking, being physically active, eating a healthy diet and controlling blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar – were key to ideal cardiovascular health.Those components, dubbed Life's Simple 7, became a common way for doctors and patients to rate and discuss heart and brain health. It's also been a key research tool, used in more than 2,500 scientific papers.Sleep duration joins those seven original metrics in a revised scoring tool, now called Life's Essential 8, which published...

WEDNESDAY, June 29, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- A yearly flu shot may do more than protect you from a nasty bout of influenza: New research suggests it may help guard against Alzheimer’s disease as well.People who were vaccinated at least once over four years were 40% less likely to develop Alzheimer’s during that period, the study found."It might be that by preventing the infection or reducing the severity of infection, we're mitigating the damage that influenza can cause in the brain, especially in those 65 and older," said lead author Dr. Avram Bukhbinder, a resident in the Division of Child Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston."An interesting piece of this puzzle is that it's not just the influenza vaccine that seems to have this protective effect on Alzheimer's...