Germany Increases Payment to Holocaust Survivors

BERLIN - Germany will pay $77 million in subsidies this year to aid needy Holocaust survivors worldwide. The decision is the end result of annual negotiations held in Berlin between the German government and the Claims Conference.

According to the terms of the deal, half of the money will be sent to survivors living in Israel who are in need of home nursing, medicine and food.

The sum of $77 million is an 85 percent increase over last year's budget the German government set aside for impoverished survivors.

The bulk of the funds are earmarked for those who escaped Nazi persecution in the former Soviet Union. These individuals were not officially recognized as Holocaust survivors by the German government since they were not directly under German rule during World War II.

Since the mid-1990s, the Claims Conference has supported their efforts to wrest reparations from Berlin. According to organization chairman Reuven Merhav, the Claims Conference coffers are expected to empty within a few years, necessitating increased financial aid from Germany.

The Claims Conference has long sought to reach agreements with Germany on the establishment of a foundation devoted to the matter of helping needy Holocaust survivors, thus negating the need for annual negotiations.

"It was only in recent years that the Germans began to recognize their responsibility and moral debt toward emigrants from the former Soviet Union who were persecuted by the Nazis," Merhav told Haaretz yesterday. "This understanding lies beyond the bounds of any political argument in Germany, and it is being championed by Chancellor Angela Merkel out of a sense that this is the last chapter in negotiations in which we are engaging with Germany over compensation to the victims of the Nazis and to Holocaust survivors."

Outside of yesterday's agreement, Germany allocates 400 million euros annually to Holocaust survivors worldwide through various aid programs.

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Diabetes & Depression: Dangerous Combination

Diabetic adults who suffer from depression more than double the risk of dementia, according to a new study.

A progressive decline of thinking and reasoning abilities, dementia results in loss of memory, difficulty with basic math, wandering, living in the past, personality changes, and not recognizing familiar people.

Dr. Wayne Katon, University of Washington (UW) Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences says diabetes alone has shown itself to be a risk factor for dementia, as has major depression.

Various other population studies have also indicated that the risk of Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia, and other dementia types is 40% to 100% higher in diabetics, compared to non-diabetics.

A history of depression has been seen to more than double subsequent risk of Alzheimer's disease, including other forms of dementia.

The study which found patients with both diabetes and major depression are more likely to be female, single, smokers, physically inactive and taking insulin treatment, also had more diabetes complications and a higher body mass index, has been published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

For more information contact Senior Solutions at (954) 456-8984 or toll free at 1-800-213-3524

Extraordinary People of the Senior Kind - Frankie

Frankie was a retired New York City Police Officer. He was a tough guy through and through. His wife had died and the light in his eyes simply went out. Frankie also was a packrat of the highest order. His three bedroom home was filled floor to ceiling with "junque". His attic was full, and his garage was piled high with more. There were pathways amongst the mountainous clutter which you had to navigate through, but if you needed to get a wheelchair into the house, there was no way.

Getting a packrat to get rid of some of his "junque" is one of the more unique and bizarre negotiations I have ever been involved with. If you will let me clean out 1/3of the garage, I'll let you keep the pile in the second bedroom. This went on and on.

Pulling teeth is an apt description!

I can only thank the Lord above that Frankie did not live in the days of the Home Shoppong Network. Had he been alive at that time, I'd still be getting rid of the stuff.

Frankie was suspicious of everyone and everything. Getting him to go to the doctor involved taking inventory before and after. Frankie was one of the strangest cases I've ever handled. Where he got his stuff no one knows, but I was convinced a lot of it had "fallen off a truck."

Newspapers, magazines, toaster ovens, old t.v.'s, boxes and boxes of linens, tools, hardware and on and on. What a pile of crapola.

The good stuff was actually in the attic, but we couldn't open the door or lower the ladder. But after his death when we were in the process of cleaning out the interior of the home, someone (who obviously knew) broke in and cleaned out the attic. To this date we have no idea what was up there.

Ronnee

For more information contact Senior Solutions at (954) 456-8984 or toll free at 1-800-213-3524

Reverse Mortgages ~ Are They for You?

Those who qualify for a reverse mortgage may be able to reap more benefits from doing so than refinancing their home loan for a lower mortgage rate or mortgage payment. If you have equity in your home and are over the age of 62 you are able to get a reverse mortgage loan. However, it will depend on your personal situation as to whether it is in your best interest to do so or not.

A reverse mortgage basically gives you money based on your home’s value, your age, and how much, if any, you owe on your home, among other things. A reverse mortgage can be valuable if you owe little or no money on your home because the money from a reverse mortgage must first go toward your mortgage. If you qualify for a $200,000 reverse mortgage and owe $50,000 on your home, you only keep $150,000. Obviously, this is going to be helpful, as you have paid off your mortgage balance and have money left over.

In some cases, a reverse mortgage is going to be equal to or less than what you owe on your home, and can be helpful in this case as well. If a reverse mortgage goes toward what you owe on your home and still leaves money owed, depending on if the difference is affordable, you may be able to get rid of your mortgage payment. For instance, if the reverse mortgage pays off everything but $5,000 or $10,000 on your mortgage and you have that much saved, you can pay the rest on your mortgage and you no longer have a mortgage payment.

Keep in mind; even though a reverse mortgage can be very beneficial, it is debt. The homeowner doesn’t have to repay the reverse mortgage unless they move or the money isn’t owed as long as they are alive, but the debt could eat into the estate of the homeowner. If you are looking for money from you home later in life, do some research on reverse mortgages and look at your personal situation to see if a reverse mortgage is right for you.

For more information contact Senior Solutions at (954) 456-8984 or toll free at 1-800-213-3524

Denver Holocaust Survivor Speaks Out

DENVER - Eighty-eight-year-old Fanny Starr has a story to tell. She wants people to know about her horrifying experiences at the Auschwitz concentration camp so something like that never happens again.

"I just want people to listen to the truth," Starr, a Denver resident, said.

But, Starr does not want people to just read about how she and some members of her family survived the holocaust. Starr believes people should hear these stories before it is too late.

"My generation is slowly passing on," Starr said.

That's why her daughter, Helen Starr, has set up live Webcasts through a virtual world known as a Second Life. It's a place where avatars of real people interact with each other.

"I believe it's the future of preserving history," Helen Starr said. "To be able to hit a wide range of people in one sitting is amazing."

The computer version of the 88-year-old woman recounts the last time she saw her mother and younger brother while on the train to Auschwitz. She remembers how people were tortured, how little children were murdered and their bodies piled up like trash.

"It's such a heinous crime in such a heinous way," Fanny Starr told listeners in New York, Scotland and Israel during a Webcast on Thursday. "I begged to God, 'That's enough. Take me.'"

Helen Starr says you cannot ask a book a question. You cannot feel the pain of a survivor's voice by reading their words.

"Once my mom's generation is gone, who's going to talk about this?" Helen Starr asked. "Who's going to tell the story of our heritage?"

Fanny Starr just wants younger generations to know about the atrocities so they do not happen again like they have in Rwanda and Darfur.

"I would like to live another 20 (years) and tell people what we went through," Fanny Starr said. "It's horrid."

For more information contact Senior Solutions at (954) 456-8984 or toll free at 1-800-213-3524

Unusual Daytime Sleeping Linked to Alzheimer's

Staring into space, disorganized or illogical thinking, and unusual daytime sleepiness suggest a greater risk for Alzheimer's in older people, a new study reveals. 


Investigators examined data from 511 men and women, aged 51 to 101 years, who were enrolled in a longitudinal study of memory and aging. Testing assessed cognitive fluctuations (mental lapses), which are spontaneous alterations in cognition, attention, and arousal. Cognitive fluctuations are a core feature of Lewy body dementia—thought to be the second most common form of dementia after Alzheimer's—but the impact of these lapses were unknown when this study began.


Study participants and knowledgeable sources (usually a spouse or adult child) were asked whether the subject experienced any of the following: (1) Drowsiness and lethargy all the time or several times a day despite having gotten enough sleep the night before (daytime somnolence); (2) daytime sleep of two or more hours before 7 p.m.; (3) episodes in which the person's flow of ideas seemed disorganized, unclear, or illogical; and (4) episodes of staring into space for long periods.


A positive response to at least three items suggests cognitive fluctuations. 


Fluctuations were present in 12% of the participants with Alzheimer's disease. Of the 295 individuals with no dementia, only two had mental lapses. Among the remaining 216, who had very mild or mild dementia, 25 had mental lapses. Overall, those with mental lapses were 4.6 times more likely to have dementia than those without. Those who had disorganized, illogical thinking had more than a sevenfold increased risk of being rated as cognitively impaired. 


The authors conclude that clinicians evaluating a patient for problems with thinking and memory should consider also assessing them for these mental lapses. "The inclusion of fluctuation scales such as the Mayo Fluctuation Questionnaire [used in this study] in the assessment of older adults for cognitive disorders may capture these clinically important events."


Another study indicated that otherwise healthy older persons (mean age: 67.2 years) with subjective cognitive impairment were 4.5 times more likely to progress to mild cognitive impairment or dementia over a seven-year period than were persons without these symptoms (Alzheimers Dement. 2010;6:11-24). Subjective cognitive impairment is marked by situations such as when people recognize their declining ability to recall a name or remember where they placed an important object.


For more information contact Senior Solutions at (954) 456-8984 or toll free at 1-800-213-3524

Seniors Taking Vacations

The day Jack Marshall turned 73, he did something he'd been meaning to do for 50 years -- stand on the steps of Nashville's country music mecca, the Grand Ole Opry.

It's one of several trips the former TransCanada PipeLines worker has enjoyed in recent years as he -- like many others in their 60s, 70s and older -- takes advantage of retirement to enjoy some travelling.

Marshall has fond memories of a cross-Canada tour he took through Anderson Vacations. He went through parts of the country he'd previously only seen while on the job.

"I'd been in a lot of those smaller communities and back roads, but I never saw them as a tourist," he says.

Many older travellers are looking for something different from the standard beach-and-sun vacations they might have enjoyed when they were younger, says Lucy Nidzgorski, branch manager for Senior Tours Canada, Inc.

"They're no longer into lying on the beach or partying all night, and they don't have kids to keep amused," she says.

"Many are following their hobbies and interests. Some may want to investigate their ancestry."

Companies like Senior Tours Canada and Anderson Vacations offer escorted package tours ranging from explorations of some of Canada's nooks and crannies, to trip-of-a-lifetime destinations like Italy and Egypt.

"Egypt is a big hit for us," says Nidzgorski. "Greece and Turkey are other biggies."

Mature travellers in the 55-plus age range have become more conservative with their spending during the economic downturn, but they're still travelling, says Corey Marshall, president and CEO of Anderson Vacations -- which, like Senior Tours, offers Canadian and international travel packages.

"You talk about 55-year-old travellers, they don't necessarily want hand-held escorted vacations, so we've developed fully independent travel (options)," he says.

"We have fully escorted travel lines. Our guides are there to give them interpretive knowledge and expertise, so they don't just go away with a fantastic holiday, but they get to know the region."

Elizabeth Muir, one of several volunteers who staff the travel desk at the Confederation Park 55-Plus Activity Centre, helps members arrange getaways and daytrips.

But she has also had a chance to enjoy some of these excursions herself. One of these was a wine tour to B.C.

"We got a beautiful tour at the Mission Hill winery and it wasn't a tour that most people get if they just stop by," she says. "They know you're coming and they set people aside for you."

She also recalls taking a trip to Mesquite, Nev., for an off-season festival of performers from the stage-show mecca of Branson, Mo.

Not all 55-plus travellers are interested in taking long excursions, either because of age or interest level, says Jacquelene Slater, another Confederation travel desk volunteer and a veteran of a 15-day escorted trip from Calgary to Branson.

"It's come to the point where daytrips are what a lot of people want to do now, like out to Kananaskis or someplace like that," she says.

Popular destinations from Confederation have included casinos in southern Alberta and Saskatchewan, dinner theatre in Rosebud, Alta., and seeing singer Daniel O'Donnell perform in Edmonton, she says.

"We also took a Hutterite trip. They picked us up here and took us out to near Beiseker, where there's a small colony that allows the buses to go in," says Slater. "They took us into their houses, their church -- it was very interesting."

Needing new people "and seeing new things you've not seen before" are reasons why Donna LePard enjoys the escorted trips she takes through Confederation Park -- whether following the Oregon and California coast to San Francisco, or taking a short drive to Olds, Alta., to tour Olds College and take in a fashion show.

"The drivers look after everybody so well," she says.

"Down the Oregon coast, there was beautiful scenery and I'd never driven down before. I went to Vegas four years ago. We walked our legs off."

The Kerby Centre has its own travel program, Globe Trotters, which helps arrange excursions to destinations ranging from Waterton and Alaska to Britain.

For older travellers who aren't interested in arranging a fully independent trip, package tours are the best option, says Muir -- both for providing company and for making sure all arrangements are taken care of.

"(On my own), I'm paying for the trip, the plane, everything I'm doing in each port -- and I'm left with the hassle if there's a problem," she says.

"If you go with a package deal, you don't have to worry about it. If the plane is delayed, someone else deals with the problem."


For more information contact Senior Solutions at (954) 456-8984 or toll free at 1-800-213-3524