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When an off-duty officer from Texas visited an older woman during a well-being check, she never imagined they'd for a lasting friendship and that he'd be helping her shop for Thanksgiving groceries six-months later Officer John Holder of the DeSoto Police Department helped 73-year-old Dorothy Shepard brave the Thanksgiving shopping crowds at a Walmart store in DeSoto and a shopper managed to snap a heartwarming photo of the unlikely pair. The police department posted the photo on their Facebook page and over 700 people liked the photo and just days later they were interviewed by WFAA-8.

Democrats hope to take back control of the Senate in 2016, but their plans could be complicated by potential retirements. The two Democratic senators most likely to retire are Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who represent both sides of the party’s ideological spectrum. Boxer, whose fourth term expires at the end of 2016, has a paltry $149,000 in her campaign account, less than almost every other senator facing election next year. As the nation’s most populous state, California is expensive to cover with advertising. If Boxer decides to run for reelection, she would face a major fundraising...

An elderly man was run over after two people stole his car in Ferguson during Monday night’s disturbances. The aftermath of the incident was captured by a St. Louis news crew and shows the chaotic scene in the parking lot of Faraci Pizza. The victim is shown lying face down on the pavement with his oxygen tank beside him.

Richard Overton, America's oldest living veteran, participated in the Veterans Day parade in Austin, Texas, on Tuesday, posing for selfies from the passenger seat of a slow-moving car along the parade route. Chances are, the 108-year-old World War II veteran began the day like any other: on the porch, smoking a cigar, sipping a cup of coffee stiffened with whiskey.

Looking for suggestions and/or advice dealing with parents with dementia and making mostly bad decisions.

(Reuters Health) - Older adults could greatly benefit from breaking up their sedentary time throughout the day, even if it's just shifting from sitting to a standing position, according to a new study. "As a general finding, older adults should make nine interruptions for every hour spent in sedentary behavior," said Luís B. Sardinha of the Exercise and Health Laboratory at the University of Lisbon in Portugal. "In fact, just the act of standing-up can be a path to achieve an improved physical function in older ages," said Sardinha, who led the study. Past studies have also suggested that being...

Sen. Mark R. Warner (D) is bringing in some heavy artillery in favor of his campaign. Former U.S. senator John W. Warner, a five-term Republican who retired in 2009, is appearing on television in support of his Democratic successor. “In Congress to get things done you gotta have the guts to cross the aisle and reach bipartisan agreement,” John Warner tells the camera. “That’s what I did, that’s what Mark Warner does today. While we come from different parties, we both believe in putting Virginia first. I know Mark Warner. He’s decisive, experienced and has courage.” The end of the...

FULL TITLE: Hospice worker who 'fondled and sodomized' nursing home patients escapes jail because his victims died or had dementia and couldn't testify A hospice worker accused of fondling and sodomizing elderly patients had rape, sodomy and sexual assault charges against him dropped because the victims had died or succumbed to Alzheimer's and couldn't testify. Walter Javier Martinez, 45, had been facing felony charges in connection with numerous episodes of sexual abuse while working at three St Louis-area nursing homes as an employee of Odyssey Hospice. The charges were replaced with four misdemeanor counts of elder abuse, to which Martinez...

THE ELDERLY are such a pain, aren't they? Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel thinks so. Half of those older than 80 have "functional limitations," the prominent health policy analyst and key ObamaCare architect writes in the October issue of The Atlantic. One in three Americans 85 and up has Alzheimer's. Old people are more likely to be disabled, or at least "faltering and declining." They lose their creative mojo. They don't "contribute to work, society, the world." Instead of being regarded as "vibrant and engaged," they grow "feeble, ineffectual, even pathetic."Especially disagreeable are old parents, who can be so irritating: "They set expectations,...

Police are looking for the suspect who raped an elderly woman during a home break-in earlier this week. It happened in the 800 block of South Crestway. The woman told police that her home was broken into while she was sleeping sometime between 9 p.m. Monday and 7 a.m. Tuesday. Police said the woman walked to a neighbor's home at 7:15 a.m. Tuesday, saying two people were inside her home. Officers responded, but no one else was inside....

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, one of the chief architects of the Affordable Care Act, says people should want to die at age 75. “Let’s face it, the vast majority of those over age 75 have nothing positive to contribute to society,” Emanuel wrote in an essay for Atlantic. “In both physical and mental terms they’re pretty accurately described as ‘decepit.’ Their bodies and minds are just rotting in their shells.” “It would be best if they could be persuaded to exit peacefully at their own hand—perhaps with the aid of a physician-prescribed suicide drug,” Emanuel suggested. “Heaven knows this would be...

>Details: An elderly husband and wife have announced their plans to die in the world’s first ‘couple’ euthanasia – despite neither of them being terminally ill.Instead the pair fear loneliness if the other one dies first from natural causes.Identified only by their first names, Francis, 89, and Anne, 86, they have the support of their three adult children who say they would be unable to care for either parent if they became widowed.The children have even gone so far as to find a practitioner willing to carry out the double killings on the grounds that the couple’s mental anguish constituted...

Reuters) - The secret marriage this year of a 96-year-old Virginia woman and a 95-year-old man has drawn the scrutiny of a judge, who has ruled the marriage may be illegal, a lawyer said on Tuesday. Judge James Clark of the Alexandria Circuit Court ruled this month that the marriage between Eddie Harrison and Edith Hill may not be legally binding and ordered Hill's attorney, Jessica Niesen, to investigate it. The legality of the marriage surfaced during a custodial dispute over who should care for Hill, who was ruled legally incapacitated in 2011. Hill's granddaughter, Rebecca Wright, and daughter Patricia...

Those who have left the workforce long ago or are now on fixed incomes are in for a rude awakening if the union goons and agitators of the Democratic Party get their way. A catastrophic rise of a new minimum wage to $15/hr would certainly make their standard of living deteriorate on an order of magnitude not seen since Jimmy Carter's 9th inning as Wimp In Chief. Consider. As businesses attempt to survive the new artificial input costs of labor imposed on them, they can 1) reduce the amount of labor; 2) invest in new IT and/or machinery in hopes...

Details have begun to emerge about the man arrested for the murder of a great grandmother beheaded in her back garden. He was named locally as Nicholas Salvadore, a 25-year-old would-be cage fighter who is believed to be a Muslim convert, who had been living a few doors from 82-year-old Palmira Silva. Salvadore was under arrest and under armed guard in hospital today after the events in a street in north London yesterday. Detectives say they have ruled out terrorism as a motive. Italian-born Mrs Silva, who owned a local café in Edmonton with her son Tony for more than...

Paul Ryan proposed a private health insurance alternative to Medicare for future retirees, liberal critics pounced. It’s another scheme to undermine health care for the elderly by “privatizing” and “voucher-izing” the program, they said.Yet, almost one third of seniors are already in private health insurance plans. They are called Medicare Part C, or Medicare Advantage, plans. And you would be hard pressed to find any Democratic office holder who wants to abolish them. The reason? Seniors choose to be in these plans because they like them better than traditional Medicare.Not only do seniors like them, but they appear to provide...

After nearly 62 years of marriage, little separated Don and Maxine Simpson — not even death. The Bakersfield couple died just four hours apart in July, spending their last moments side by side. He was 90 and she was 87. Granddaughter Melissa Sloan tells The Bakersfield Californian that her grandmother died first, and when her body was taken away, Don Simpson’s soul left with her.

Her hearing isn't great, and her legs are weakening too. She doesn't have much appetite either, often finishing only a small portion of her meals. But you will never hear Madam Chua Sua Teh complaining about her age. Indeed, the 100-year-old woman can still play a mean game of Wii bowling. Despite the usual effects of ageing, Madam Chua is simply happy that she has hit the 100-year mark this year. She told The New Paper last Thursday in Teochew: "I don't worry myself with thoughts about death or illness, I simply live one day at a time, and make...

San Diego Padres and Petco Park welcomed Agnes McKee to celebrate her 105th birthday in a very special wayAgnes McKee's birthday celebration wasn't just a first for her. It was also a first for Major League Baseball. At 105, McKee threw out the first pitch before Sunday’s San Diego Padres game and became the oldest person ever to throw out a ceremonial first pitch. “I haven’t thrown a ball in years,” she said before the game. “I do Wii Bowling which we do like this,” she said gesturing. “So it’s the same thing.” “Other than that, nothing on this scale...

No, the United States isn’t trying to build a military force of centenarians. It just seems that way after the Selective Service System mistakenly sent notices to more than 14,000 Pennsylvania men born between 1893 and 1897, ordering them to register for the nation’s military draft and warning that failure to do so is “punishable by a fine and imprisonment.” The agency realized the error when it began receiving calls from bewildered relatives last week. Chuck Huey, 73, of Kingston, said he got a notice addressed to his late grandfather Bert Huey, a World War I veteran who was born...