Good Stop Smoking Theraphy

http://creativeweight.mywapblog.com/good-stop-smoking-theraphy.xhtml


 The most important thing to do is to avoid quitting "cold turkey". When a smoker tries to stop smoking weed without asking any help, it only has a 5% chance of achieving his goal. On average, a smoker has four attempts to quit smoking. This is due to the fact that many smokers try to quit without helping oneself.
If you are serious about quitting smoking you should ask for some assistance. This will improve greatly your chances. If you choose the right technique, you might even quit on your first try, or your next attempt.
You have a lot ways to choose from. There is nicotine replacement therapies like the patch or nicotine gum to work by replacing the nicotine in cigarettes with another source. They do notusually have a high assurance and you may get used to it a couple of times to work. There are also medications to help people quit smoking. These can be expensive and some have side effects of having fear.


There is a technique called Neuro Linguistic Programming or NLP, which has proved very successful in helping smokers to quit. Succession rate is much higher than all methods to stopsmoking more. NLP is a therapy technique that works so well because it eliminates the craving of smoking weed.

In a study carried out recently, 5,000 smokers participated in a session of NLP aims to eliminate the need to smoke. Six months after the test was carried out 97.2% of participants remainedsmoke-free. That success rate is much higher than any other method available to help you stop smoking.

Another thing that makes NLP the best way to quit smoking is that it is all natural. There are no side effects you may experience when using medications to stop smoking weed.

Medicare Costs Continue to Hold Steady

 http://news.springhillcaregroup.net/2012/09/24/medicare-costs-continue-to-hold-steady/


The Medicare Advantage (MA) program has remained strong and is going to continue growing, with an expected 11% increase over the next year in terms of enrollment, according to Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services.

The Affordable Health Care System Act, passed in 2010, has resulted in an 18% increase in enrollment and a 10% decrease in premium cost for Medicare Advantage
.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), for the third year running, has used its power given by the Affordable Health Care System Act to keep beneficiaries from getting hit with high costs or benefit reductions. The money that beneficiaries are currently paying out of pocket has remained steady, and supplemental benefits have stayed the same.

The standard cost of an MA premium in 2013 will be $32.59, an increase from last year of only $1.47, but if beneficiaries opt for smaller cost plans in 2013 at the identical rate they did in 2012, their premium cost will only go up 57 cents.

99.6% of beneficiaries will have access to a plan through the Medicare Advantage program, and as of 2013, 7 more plan options will become available.

In 2013, the standard basic Medicare premium plan for prescription drugs will be roughly $30, the same as last year, according to CMS, and all people with Medicare will have a large range of options in terms of plans.

Under the Affordable Health Care System Act, generic and brand name medications involved in the Part D “donut hole” coverage break will steadily increase until the donut hole is closed in 2020.

Individuals with Medicare were awarded with 14% coverage on generic drugs in the donut hole, as well as a 50% reduction in cost for brand name medications this year.

Brand name medication coverage will start to grow in 2013, and result in a 53% cut of cost for these drugs in the donut hole. 21% of generic drugs will also be covered.

5.4 million Individuals with Medicare have saved upwards of $4.1 billion on prescription medications in the donut hole since the Affordable Health Care System Actwas legislated. In 2011, around 37 million people with Medicare were given a preventive benefit at no cost.

Medication programme extended to more homes, home-care providers

http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/singapore/story/medication-programme-extended-more-homes-home-care-providers-20120930


A programme that gets pharmacists to help make sure nursing home residents take their medicines promptly and safely will be extended to more homes and home-care providers. It follows a successful one-year pilot at six nursing homes in the last year.

They are St Theresa's Home, Society for the Aged Sick, Tai Pei Social Service, Sree Narayana Mission Home for the Aged Sick, Jamiyah Nursing Home and Moral Home for the Aged Sick.
A spokesman for the Agency for Integrated Care (AIC), an entity under the Ministry of Health that oversees the long-term care of the elderly, said it would start getting in touch with other nursing homes and hoped to extend the programme to all eventually.

For the pilot, pharmacists from Guardian Health & Beauty, Watson's Personal Care Stores, NTUC Unity Healthcare and the National Healthcare Group visited the six homes and met individual residents to sort out their medications.

NKorean fishing boats said to violate sea boundary

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean fishing boats crossed the Koreas' tense western sea boundary and retreated soon after being warned Wednesday in the second such violation this year, South Korea said. No fighting erupted though the border is one the North has long refused to recognize.

A North Korean government boat briefly crossed the boundary while trying to guide the seven fishing boats back to North Korean-controlled waters, a South Korean Defense Ministry official said on condition of anonymity, citing office rules.

Later Wednesday, seven North Korean boats again violated the boundary, but they all sailed back after a warning was broadcast, the official said. It wasn't clear whether they were the same seven boats that earlier crossed.

Seoul says North Korean fishing boats last crossed in April. The disputed sea boundary is not clearly marked, and incursions by North Korean military and fishing boats are not unusual. Violence often erupts in the seafood-rich waters, and three naval clashes since 1999 have taken a few dozen lives.

After the Korean War ended nearly 60 years ago with a truce, not with a peace treaty, the U.S.-led U.N. Command divided the Yellow Sea without Pyongyang's consent. The boundary cut North Korea off from rich fishing waters, and Pyongyang has contested the line ever since.

North Korea shelled a front-line South Korean island near the boundary in November 2010, killing four people. Earlier in 2010, an explosion ripped apart a South Korean warship in the area, killing 46 sailors. Seoul said Pyongyang torpedoed the vessel. North Korea denies responsibility.

Seoul to have just two workers to support one elderly person by 2039

An average of two Seoul citizens would have to work to support one elderly by 2039 amid the falling birth rate and rising life expectancy, statistics showed Wednesday.

Statistics data from the Seoul Metropolitan Government predicts that in 27 years, the working-age population between 15 and 64 would drop 26 percent to 5.99 million and senior citizens aged 65 and over are expected to grow 172 percent to 2.95 million. 

Currently an average of 7.4 working people support each senior citizen.

The demographic change is feared to squeeze the city’s workforce, threatening growth and pension systems.

The data based on a survey by the Statistics Korea also indicated that the number of youth aged 1 to 14 is forecast to decrease by 25 percent to 1.03 million. 

                                 

As a result, young people would comprise 10.3 percent, the labor force 60.1 percent and senior citizens 29.6 percent of the Seoul population. 

South Korea has one of the lowest birth rates in the world, with an average of 1.24 babies per household. Korea is also rapidly becoming an aged society due to increased lifespan, with over 14 percent of the population being 65 and older.

A separate survey in 2011 by the municipal authorities showed that 31.7 percent of citizens are willing to pay more taxes for the welfare of senior citizens, an increase from 26.1 percent in 2007.

The number of senior citizens over 65 prepared for retired life has increased from 35 percent to 47.1 percent. Among elders over 60, 97.3 percent wished to receive welfare services. Among the options, 34.1 percent wanted health examinations, 24 percent wanted nursing and 14.2 percent wanted housework assistance.

The number of working citizens over 60 also hit 471,000 last year, a 50.5 percent increase from 313,000 in 2001.

Obama seeks to widen support base with Florida seniors, Hispanics

By NBC's Ali Weinberg

KISSIMMEE, Fla. -- Kicking off a two-day Sunshine State barnstorm Saturday, President Barack Obama tapped into key parts of what he hopes will be a winning Florida coalition similar to but larger than the one he assembled in 2008.

At stops in Seminole and Kissimmee, Fla., the president, who won the Sunshine State by just 50.9 percent in 2008, targeted the votes of senior citizens, warning that their Medicare benefits would be harmed by a plan put forward by his Republican opponents Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan.
“I want you to know, AARP, I would never turn Medicare into a voucher,” Obama said at a civic center here, making an explicit play for members of the 50-and-up club. “I believe no American should ever have to spend their golden years at the mercy of insurance companies.”

Obama lost Florida seniors to John McCain in 2008 but is seeking to do better with them this time around, focusing mainly on appealing to their support of federal entitlements. They’re a lucrative demographic in Florida, having made up 22 percent of the total vote in 2008.

Vice President Joe Biden also brought the “Medicare good, Republicans bad” message to Zanesville, Ohio, where he told a crowd there that Romney and Ryan are “not actually preserving Medicare. They’re for a whole new plan, ‘vouchercare.’"


Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

President Barack Obama, left, on stage after being introduced by Viviana Margarita Janer, right, at a campaign event Saturday at the Kissimmee, Fla., Civic Center.

The Romney campaign pushed back on Biden’s attack on Medicare, saying in a statement that Biden “knowingly and deliberately leveled false and discredited attacks.”
                              

Besides seniors, the president also tailored his pitch Saturday to Hispanic voters, who tended to lean Republican in Florida before 57 percent of them voted for Obama in 2008. Introducing him in Kissimmee was Viviana Margarita Janer, a woman who was born in Puerto Rico but has lived in the United States since she was 6 months old.

Janer urged the audience of 3,000 to register to vote, noting that the website gotta register.com, which Obama frequently hawks on the stump, is also available in Spanish.

“When you put the ‘I voted’ sticker on, you’re going to feel great pride knowing that you gave this man, this great leader, four more years to finish what he started,” she said.

And earlier in Seminole, Obama praised Hispanic voters as part of the patchwork that gave him a win in Florida in 2008.

“I look out on this crowd, I am reminded you were the change,” he said to a crowd of 10,000 at the Seminole campus of St. Petersburg College, noting “folks… from every walk of life -- black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, young, old, gay, straight, abled, disabled,” he said.
The president blazed through friendly territory throughout Saturday, first in Pinellas County, home to Seminole, where he won 54 percent of the vote in 2008. And Osceola County, where Kissimmee is, gave him 60 percent of the vote.

Kissimmee has special resonance for the Obama campaign given Bill Clinton’s post-convention status as Obama has been putting it “Secretary of Explaining Stuff:” Kissimmee was the first place the two campaigned together after Obama bested Clinton’s wife, Hillary, in the 2008 Democratic primaries.

During that Oct. 30 speech, Clinton, perhaps still a bit raw from the bruising primary his wife endured, praised Obama as a good decision-maker in part because he had the good sense to consult the Clintons during the financial crisis.

“He talked to his advisers — he talked to my economic advisers, he called Hillary. He called me,” Clinton said. “You know why? Because he knew it was complicated and before he said anything, he wanted to understand,” Clinton said, four years before he would get a bear hug from the now-president after delivering one of the strongest defenses ever of the latter’s policies.

Businesses Focus on Region's Aging Population

Using a moisture sensor, a wireless system and a mobile phone, Kevin Wong, the chief executive of Ckicom Technology Ltd, explains how this new technology can alert caregivers when they should change the diapers of elderly people in nursing homes.

As the rapid aging of Asia's population creates challenges for governments and societies, new opportunities are emerging for businesses serving the needs of the elderly and their caretakers.
While population aging is a global phenomenon, the Asian-Pacific region is expected to see a particularly drastic demographic change over the next few decades. The number of elderly persons in the region—already home to more than half of the world's population aged 60 and over—is expected to triple to more than 1.2 billion by 2050, when one in four people in the region will be over 60 years old, according to the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.

Across Asia, large corporations and entrepreneurs in various industries are racing to come up with new products and services for the elderly, while health-care-related businesses are seeing soaring demand. Among various fields of health care for the elderly, nursing homes represent one of the fastest-growing sectors.
 

                

Bloomberg News

Pedestrians in Tokyo last week, where one-third of the population is forecast to be over 65 by 2030.

In Japan, companies that previously had little to do with the issue of aging have jumped on the bandwagon. In 2005, Watami Co., which operates Japanese-style izakaya pubs serving food and drinks, entered a new business of running nursing homes. In the most recent fiscal year, the nursing business was more profitable than its izakaya business. Demand for Watami's new business is robust because Japan's population is the world's grayest, according to a 2009 United Nation report, with nearly 30% aged 60 or older.

Other parts of Asia, such as China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore, are also anticipating a surge in the percentage of elderly citizens. In China, people over the age of 60 now account for 13.3% of the country's population of 1.34 billion, up from 10.3% in 2000, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, and the aging trend is expected to accelerate.

                            


In January, China's state-run Xinhua news agency wrote about challenges facing nursing homes, saying "there are simply not enough nurses or beds to accommodate the country's elderly population."

In March, Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said at a forum in Beijing that the country needs to take more steps to cope with a rapidly aging population in the years ahead.

Despite varying levels of infrastructure and support from governments, the global market for nursing and health-care services continues to expand, and expectations are rising for businesses that might meet the growing demand.

Last month, IHH Healthcare Bhd., Asia's largest hospital operator by market value, staged a strong trading debut in Malaysia and Singapore, after raising US$2 billion in its initial public offering, the world's third-largest IPO this year.

Analysts said that population aging in Asia and the rest of the world makes IHH a good long-term investment.

Given the opportunities in the market for hospitals and nursing homes, some technology entrepreneurs are focusing on products and services they could sell to health-care institutions.
Kevin Wong, an engineer from Guangzhou, China, has developed a new product that he thinks will appeal to nursing homes and hospitals. His Hong-Kong based start-up, Ckicom Technology Ltd., sells a disposable adult diaper equipped with a moisture sensor and a wireless system that sends wetness alerts to nursing-home workers via personal computers and mobile phones.

A small clip-on sensor device attached to the diaper detects moisture through special carbon ink prints on the diaper's inner surface and sends the information wirelessly to PCs and mobile phones. The clip-on device isn't disposable.

Each disposable diaper costs US$1.20 or less, and nursing homes also need to purchase or lease the wireless system including the clip-on devices. For a nursing home with 100 beds, for example, the system would likely cost US$5,000 to US$10,000, the company said.

Ckicom's CAREase diaper, one of the 12 finalists competing for The Wall Street Journal's Asian Innovation Awards, can detect wetness at three different levels, eliminating the need for workers to repeatedly check residents' diapers just to see whether they need to be replaced. "It helps nursing homes upgrade their services," Mr. Wong said.

Mr. Wong, 50 years old, came up with the idea of a wetness-sensing diaper for babies more than 30 years ago, during a classroom discussion at the South China Institute of Technology. He never pursued that idea and instead worked for much of the past three decades at a company that develops consumer-electronics products.

Five years ago, one of his college classmates, who lived in the U.S., called Mr. Wong and reminded him of the moisture-sensing diaper idea, which Mr. Wong himself had forgotten about. The friend said that nursing homes for the elderly would want such a diaper.

After conducting research for almost a year, Mr. Wong quit his job and started Ckicom in 2008 to develop the diaper in a project partially funded by the Hong Kong government.

The challenge was to create a comfortable diaper that can accurately determine wetness levels, while keeping the cost reasonable, Mr. Wong said.

The potential market is growing, as Hong Kong expects the percentage of its population aged 65 and over to increase to 26% in 2036 from 12% in 2006, according to the Census and Statistics Department.

Five nursing homes in Hong Kong are now testing the CAREase diaper, while the company's Taiwanese distribution agent has recently received orders for 100,000 diapers.

Ckicom also has set up an office in Tokyo.

The closely held company forecasts revenue of about US$1 million in the current fiscal year through March.

While Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan are its main markets for now, the company wants eventually to expand into the U.S. and Europe as well as mainland China, Mr. Wong said.

Letters: Seniors should look out for next generation

In USA TODAY's article "The underlying duel of 2012: Seniors vs. Millennials," GOP volunteer Immo Sulyok is quoted saying about Election Day: "I'll be there, or I'll be dead."
As will I, but my vote will be for President Obama ("A defining gap: Seniors for Romney, Millennials for Obama")

 I believe that our major concern should be educating our young. It is unbelievably arrogant for seniors like me to worry about only our welfare, finances and health. We had our day in the sun.
The future generation is being short-changed by cuts in education spending and the increasing cost of higher education. We are witnessing the dumbing-down of America.

There is also so much misinformation floating around about the Affordable Care Act and so much we mere citizens do not understand. Many rely on radio or TV talk-show hosts to teach us, and unfortunately, the hosts "teach" their opinions. Perhaps we should still think for ourselves.

Joan LaRose; San Diego

Older voters remember There is a different sense of history that divides Millennials and those 65 and older. Older voters remember the Cuban missile crisis, the Cold War and the hot Korean War and Vietnam conflict.

Seniors served and sacrificed in Korea and Vietnam to defend the free world against communism. They have seen what communism wrought in Eastern Europe and Asia. This brave generation will vote in droves for Mitt Romney to prevent President Obama from transforming a free America into a socialist or communist one.

Paul Hoylen Jr.; Deming, N.M.

Elderly rely on entitlements The great majority of older Americans are expected to vote for Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for president, in the upcoming election. Ironically, most of these senior citizens depend heavily on Social Security and Medicare for survival. Both of these programs were enacted by Democratic presidents and Congresses controlled by Democrats! What are these seniors thinking?

Bob Hamlett; Nashville

 GOP plan causes concerns While I am 65 years old, I do not support Mitt Romney or any Republican. ("The underlying duel of 2012 Seniors vs. Millennials"). It is surprising to me that any senior thinks otherwise, given Rep. Paul Ryan's proposed budget that would mean deep spending cuts.

Also, while President Obama might want to keep lower college loan interest rates, the task is ultimately that of Congress. Finally, if Republican volunteer Beverly Rubin, 62, does not want socialized medicine, then I expect her to not participate in Medicare once she turns 65.

Brian Hoover; Independence, Mo.