Archive for October, 2010

October 23, 2010

Paying Taxes on Social Security Benefits in Baltimore, MD

Here is some important and interesting news from The New York Times/The New Old Age on social security benefits.

Paying Taxes on Social Security Benefits
By PAULA SPAN

Are Social Security benefits taxable?

A recent post on young people’s attitudes toward Social Security drew this comment from a reader, rltlaw in Texas: “Let’s not forget that Social Security benefits are taxable as income.”
That’s not usually the case. Only 34 percent of beneficiaries pay federal income taxes on any of their Social Security income, the Social Security Administration says.

Here’s why: The taxability of benefits depends on your total income. As your income rises and passes certain thresholds, the proportion of Social Security benefits that becomes taxable increases as well.

The key factor is your “combined income,” defined as your taxable income (that’s the adjusted gross income on your 1040 federal tax return), plus any tax-exempt interest you receive, plus one-half of your Social Security benefits. (I’m relying, as usual, on The New Old Age’s own elder law attorney, Craig Reaves of Kansas City, to explain this stuff.) Whether none, or half, or 85 percent of your Social Security becomes taxable (you’re never taxed on 100 percent of it) depends on this number.

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Home care counselors at CMK Home Care are available to talk with you about your home health care needs including how to reduce caregiver stress while providing better, affordable care. CMK Home Care is a home care agency providing  Home Care in Baltimore.

October 19, 2010

CMK HOME CARE CHARLESTON,SC NEW LOCATION!!!!!!

We are excited to announce that we have a new location in Charleston, SC !!!! Lead by Director Pam Chambers, who has over 30 years of operations and management experience, CMK Home Care Charleston will be  providing quality care to the community. To find out more information about CMK Home Care Charleston please contact  843-849-5454.

October 16, 2010

Portable Dialysis Gives Grandma At-Home Care in Baltimore, MD

A new lease on life

By Christine McConville / The Pulse

Aurelie Blanchard feels like a teenager, at 70.

After years of dragging herself to a dialysis center twice a week to keep her failing kidneys functioning, this Methuen grandmother of 10 now gets to stay healthy – while staying home.

Thanks to “Clyde,” a portable dialysis machine made by NxStage Medical in Lawrence, Blanchard has reduced her health-care costs, improved her health and boosted her morale.
“I have my social life back,” she said last week.

Blanchard, who suffers from a rare autoimmune disease, is among the 500,000 Americans with kidney failure. To stay alive, she must remove waste products and water from her blood, via a complicated and costly medical procedure known as hemodialysis.

It’s a twice-a-week procedure that some Americans with kidney failure already rely on.

The number is expected to double in coming years as the nation faces the long-term complications of diabetes, obesity and hypertension.

That means our national health-care costs will soar, because Medicaid covers the enormous costs of hemodialysis.
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Senior home care counselors at CMK Home Care are available to talk with you about your care needs including how to reduce caregiver stress while
providing better, affordable care. CMK Home Care is a home care agency providing  Senior Home Care in Baltimore.

October 8, 2010

In Elderly, Celiac Disease is on the Rise in Baltimore, MD

If you or an elderly loved one is suffering from symptoms such as abdominal cramping, anemia, or unexplained weight loss, please read this article from  HealthDay News.
Celiac Disease Seems to Be on the Rise, Mainly in Elderly: Study
(HealthDay News) — The autoimmune disorder known as celiac disease appears to be on the rise, particularly among elderly Americans, new research suggests.
Researchers from the United States and Italy uncovered evidence that overall incidence rates of the disease — marked by an intolerance to the protein gluten that is found in wheat, barley and rye — have been doubling every 15 years since 1974.
The findings are reported in the Sept. 27 online edition of Annals of Medicine by lead author Dr. Carlo Catassi, of the Universita Politecnica delle Marche in Ancona, Italy, who also serves as co-director of the University of Maryland School of Medicine Center for Celiac Research.
The study authors said it’s not clear what causes a person to develop the disease. Genetics seem to play a role, and some people are born with it. But, genetic predisposition doesn’t always translate into actual illness, because others without a predisposition can develop gluten intolerance.
Environmental factors are also believed to figure into the equation, although it’s not known why, Catassi and his colleagues said.
To get a better handle on the condition, the researchers took blood samples from more than 3,500 adults. The investigators found that the ratio of people who had blood markers for the disease rose continuously from one in every 501 individuals in 1974 to one in 219 by 1989.
The researchers also pointed to a 2003 study that placed the incidence rate at approximately one in every 133 Americans.
The researchers also found that as their study participants grew older, the rate of disease went up. This mirrored an earlier Finnish study that suggested that celiac disease appears to be two-and-a-half times more common among the elderly than the general population. This contradicts a previously held notion that gluten intolerance usually takes place during childhood, the researchers said.

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For the best in Home Care and Senior Living, please visit CMK Home Care at http://cmkhomecare.com/.

October 1, 2010

Baltimore, MD: Dementia If You Do, Dementia If You Don’t

Here is an article from Sharon’s Senior Living Blog/About.com that addresses the conflicting research on dementia prevention.

By: Sharon O’Brien

On the subject of seniors staving off dementia by staying mentally active, there is good news and bad news, according to new research published this month by Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

Exercising your mind with activities such as reading a newspaper, going to a museum, solving crossword puzzles or playing chess does help slow or prevent the development of dementia, just as we’ve been told for the past several years. But new evidence shows that once dementia begins, that same mentally stimulating lifestyle that helped keep dementia at bay can cause the disease to progress much more quickly.

For the study, researchers recruited 1,157 people who were 65 and older–all free of dementia–from the same Chicago neighborhood, asked them how often they participated in mentally stimulating activities, and gave each person a score on a cognitive activity scale. The more frequently people exercised their minds with stimulating activities, the higher their score.

More than a decade later, researchers found that for seniors who didn’t have dementia the rate of cognitive decline was reduced by 52 percent for each point on the cognitive activity scale. For those who had developed Alzheimer’s disease during the previous decade, however, the average rate of cognitive decline per year increased 42 percent for every point on the cognitive activity scale.

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For the best in Senior Care, please visit CMK Home Care at http://cmkhomecare.com/.