Wales Online, 16 November 2009

Consultation on how Wales will pay for elderly people’s care needs public input, says Deputy MinisterGwenda Thomas. Read full article now on Wales Online

Nov 9 2009

The High Court made a Group Litigation Order in relation to the Group Action brought by around 500 individuals alleging harm from problems withdrawing from Seroxat.

On 19 May 2009 the High Court ordered that any individual who wishes to pursue a compensation claim must join the Group Action before 15 January 2010.

All individuals must have their claim investigated before they can join the action and so they need to come forward ASAP.

Register your interest now, call the Seroxat team at Hugh James, designated as lead solicitors for the purposes of the Group Litigation order, on 029 20 785 971 or go to www.hughjames.com/seroxat

The Group Register will close on 15 January 2010 and any individuals who have not joined at that date may lose their opportunity to be part of the litigation.

You should not stop taking medication without consulting your doctor.

For more information go to www.hughjames.com/seroxat

The scheme was established following the Health Ombudsman report which advised Local Health Boards to review cases from April 1996 to date. If a person has been contributing towards their care fees from 1996, they may be entitled to a reimbursement of their fees. This is the case even if the person who was cared for has since died.

The scheme which is managed by Powys Local Health Board has paid out over £18 million pounds to over 500 Welsh families since 2004 in wrongly paid nursing home fees.

It is important that people are aware of this new deadline. This is their last chance to ask the Local Health Board for a review of care home fees paid before April 2003.

Older adults with higher amounts of lead in their bones exhibit greater memory impairment than adults with low lead levels, researchers have found. In a study of men and women aged 55 to 67 years, higher lead levels were associated with poorer performance on tasks used to assess memory deficits. Although other studies have found associations between lead exposure and cognitive deficits in older adults, this is the first study to link lead exposure with specific measures of memory impairment that are characteristic of Alzheimer’s Disease. The researchers measured lead levels in the bones of the shin and heel of 47 volunteers using X-ray fluorescence. Lead levels in bone reflect exposure over several years or even decades. Individuals with higher bone lead levels were less able to remember specific patterns or the locations of items. Raised bone lead levels have been linked to a range of chronic health problems, including diminished brain function, kidney and heart disease. Many of these occur at levels a fraction the UK exposure limits. Over 8,000 workers in the UK are monitored for lead exposures at work each year, but only blood lead readings are obtained. These can be useful in identifying acute poisoning cases, but have no use in detecting chronic health problems. Diseases related to lead exposure can be the result of a cumulative dose over years, often occurring in later life, something that cannot be identified in blood tests but is apparent from bone lead tests.

Source: Environmental Health News. E van Wijngaarden, JR Campbell and DA Cory-Slechta. Bone lead levels are associated with measures of memory impairment in older adults. Neurotoxicology, published online 2009. doi:10.1016/j.neuro.2009.05.007.