Daily life is fraught with subtle dangers. There are risks associated with a trip to the grocery store, a walk in the park, or even a relaxing bath. Despite these risks, most people continue to buy groceries, bathe, and walk outdoors. They accept the idea that accidents happen, but they think it is more important to live fulfilling, happy lives.

Seniors are the most likely to top Hurricane Sandy’s butcher’s bill, the Gerontological Society of America warned Wednesday. Sandy was a once-in-a-century storm that appeared to have swallowed most of the East Coast. Authorities up and down the Eastern seaboard were still trying to count casualties and damages, and much of New York and New Jersey was still off the grid Wednesday.

Nursing home hospitalizations and deaths spiked at least 10 percent during norovirus outbreaks, a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported Thursday.

“Incorrect weight shifting” was the most likely culprit in senior falls, Canadian researchers have determined. Researchers in British Columbia analyzed video from 227 falls in two separate nursing homes over three years. Seniors who had trouble moving their bodies so that their weight was shifted evenly as they moved accounted for 41 percent of them, followed by tripping or stumbling (21 percent).

Nearly one-third of elderly Medicare patients were spending the last six months of their lives in skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) rather than in hospice care, a new study has found.

An Aug. 24 bulletin from the Center for Medicaid & CHIP Services (CMCS) informs states about tactics to address vulnerable populations’ overuse of psychotropic drugs. Specifically, CMCS defines vulnerable populations as foster care children and senior citizens afflicted with dementia.

Women with low sleep efficiency and high levels of sleep disturbances may be more susceptible to placement in nursing homes or assisted living communities.

Avoidable readmissions cost Medicare an estimated $12 billion each year. One thing is clear—there will soon be incentive to improve the management of post-acute conditions of skilled nursing facility (SNF) Medicare beneficiaries through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Nursing Home Pay for Performance initiative. The initiative includes staffing, quality measures, survey inspections, and potential avoidable hospitalizations.

If Obama wins (which again, means that the Democrats will likely control the Senate), he’ll have more leverage to expand his reforms. That doesn’t mean that Obamacare will be implemented, as-is. Even now, experts say, the administration is considering ways to define “full-time” employees for the purposes of the health care reforms. The administration could still set a high threshold of worker hours before requiring employers to provide health insurance. That would bring enormous relief to a lot of businesses—but especially long term care providers, who typically see high employee turnover.

The need to be needed is essential to the human condition and does not fade in the elderly, health care experts say. Lysobey believes that programs like The Farm are fairly simple to incorporate and can be hugely effective in lowering levels of depression in long term care facilities. The widely held notion that residents should simply rest and relax through their “golden years” is erroneous, experts say. “There are nonprofits in every community and nursing homes asking to help,” Lysobey says. “Residents just want to be needed and to help.”