K-State News Insider

Kansas State University researchers are discovering the challenges aging creates for drivers. To help improve traffic safety, K-State engineers identified the characteristics of older drivers in Kansas and the types of crashes they are involved in. Their research found most car accidents involving older drivers occur during the daytime and are more severe, often ending [...]

A dementia and Alzheimer’s lecturer coming to K-State will give a personal account of his life with the disease. Richard Taylor is a retired psychologist, award-winning author and renowned speaker. He has lived with dementia — most likely Alzheimer’s disease — for the past decade. He will present “Be With Me Today” from 10 to [...]

Antioxidants increasingly have been praised for their benefits against disease and aging, but recent studies at Kansas State University show that they also can cause harm. Researchers in K-State’s Cardiorespiratory Exercise Laboratory have been studying how to improve oxygen delivery to the skeletal muscle during physical activity by using antioxidants, which are nutrients in foods [...]

Farming is less a job than it is a way of life for the Kansas farmers who watch their peers retire from office and factory jobs without intentions of quitting themselves. They also often don’t have plans for the farms after they’re gone. That’s what a K-State sociologist has found in a study of farmers [...]

A Kansas State University student is helping develop curriculum to address aging and diversity issues that occur in long-term care facilities. Shelby Griffin, a May 2009 bachelor’s graduate in human ecology and gerontology, Sublette, worked on a project with Laci Cornelison, research assistant at K-State’s Center on Aging, to develop a training program on diversity [...]

Researchers from K-State’s Center on Aging won a National Mature Media Award for their work on sexuality in nursing homes. K-State’s Center on Aging won a bronze distinction in the trainings/in-services category for their submission, “Sexuality in Nursing Homes:  The Heart has no Wrinkles.” The award was presented by Mature Market Resource Center, a national [...]

Kansas State University students have been learning about aging from mentors at a local retirement community, with many of the students establishing friendships with the older generation. For a seminar in gerontology course, K-State students are paired with resident mentors at the Meadowlark Hills Retirement Community in Manhattan. Gayle Doll, director of the Center of [...]

Kansas State University students who are learning about aging have been taking classes and doing research in a most appropriate place — a local retirement community. Because of the community’s commitment to the university, K-Staters now have their own classroom at Meadowlark Hills Retirement Community in Manhattan. “This allows students at K-State and all across [...]

Although a new nursing home quality rating system has several dimensions, experts say it fails to address perhaps the most important question: Are the residents who live there happy? When choosing a nursing home, Kansas State University aging experts suggest visiting the facility in the morning. If some of the residents are still sleeping while [...]

by Gayle Doll, director of Kansas State University’s Center on Aging Experts at the Kansas State University Center on Aging have been studying exemplary nursing homes in Kansas for more than seven years. We are disappointed with the new government five-star rating system for nursing homes because we think it leaves out an important element: [...]