As people age, managing medications often becomes more complicated. With multiple chronic conditions, evolving health needs, and varying prescription instructions, seniors can easily become overwhelmed by their routines. While pill organizers and reminder apps are helpful, truly effective medication management requires a broader understanding of the physical and emotional factors that come with aging.
Improper medication use can lead to serious consequences, including missed doses, interactions, and unwanted side effects. However, when the right support system is in place, these routines can be made safer, easier to follow, and more aligned with the senior’s overall well-being.
A person-centered approach is essential. Medication plans should reflect a senior’s individual habits, preferences, and lifestyle rather than focusing solely on a list of prescriptions. One individual may manage their medications confidently but still forget an afternoon dose due to a shifting appetite or nap schedule. Another may feel anxious when prescriptions change, especially if past experiences with side effects have left them cautious. Addressing these personal dynamics allows caregivers and preventative healthcare providers to offer support that fits real-life situations.
L. Levi[/caption]
Liran Levi, PhD student
Faculty of Medicine at Hebrew University
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Motivated behavior is driven by a group of brain regions called collectively the reward system. This neural system is at the heart of every decision we make about our actions - it integrates information about the world and decides whether to perform a behavior or not based on the predicted reward/benefit. The key molecule in this process is dopamine - whenever we perform a behavior that provides a reward dopamine is released in the reward system and reinforces this behavior. Drugs of abuse exploit this system - they cause abnormally high levels of dopamine, and thus force the reward system to seek drugs constantly, even after prolonged withdrawal. From a neurobiological perspective, that is how we view substance dependence - the reward system drives people to seek for the reward.
Prof. Ruth Shemer[/caption]
MedicalResearch.com: What types of cells were used in the study, ie keratinocytes, muscle cells etc?
Response: The primary tissue used in this study was peripheral blood from over 300 healthy human donors (18-78 years old). To further understand how the methylation changes are associated with changes in blood cell composition, we also sorted immune cell types including neutrophils, monocytes, B cells, and T cells. For forensics applications, we also tested the clock on urine and saliva samples.
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Prof. Yuval Dor[/caption]
MedicalResearch.com: Does this study relate at all to telomere length?Response:
Response: No, this study does not investigate or reference telomere length. It focuses entirely on DNA methylation changes at few genomics regions, each covering multiple clustered DNA methylation sites, where methylation changes are indicative of chronological age, independently of telomere biology.
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings?
Response: - A single-molecule analysis using DNA sequencing, revealed that 
Dr. Campanella[/caption]
Gabriele Campanella, PhD
Assistant Professor
Windreich Department of Artificial Intelligence and Human Health
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Lung cancer is the most lethal cancer in the US. Lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) is the most common form of lung cancer with an incidence of over 100k per year in the US. EGFR mutations are common driver mutations in LUAD, and importantly, these mutations can be targeted by TKI therapy, which has high response rates. Because of this, EGFR testing via NGS (Next Generation Sequencing) is considered mandatory by guidelines for any LUAD diagnosis.
In high-resource settings, rapid EGFR testing is done while waiting for confirmation via NGS. This is because NGS takes about 2 weeks on average, while the rapid testing has a median TAT of 2 days. Early treatment decisions could be made based on the rapid test results. Rapid tests have some important drawbacks, most notably, it exhausts tissue. In lung cancer, tissue is scarce in the first place, and up to 25% of cases, after rapid testing there is not enough tissue for NGS. In those circumstances, patients have to be biopsied again, which adds unnecessary risk for the patient. Even worse, in some cases, the NGS is never done. A non-tissue-exhaustive computational biomarker could be used instead of the tissue-based rapid test.
