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WEDNESDAY, Sept. 15, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- The heart rates of people sync up when listening to a story, a new study finds."There's a lot of literature demonstrating that people synchronize their physiology with each other. But the premise is that somehow you're interacting and physically present [in] the same place," said co-author Lucas Parra, a professor of biomedical engineering at City College of New York. "What we have found is that the phenomenon is much broader, and that simply following a story and processing stimulus will cause similar fluctuations in people's heart rates. It's the cognitive function that drives your heart rate up or down," Parra explained.For the study, the researchers conducted four experiments. In the first, healthy volunteers listened to a reading of...

WEDNESDAY, Sept. 15, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Older adults who are socially isolated are more likely to experience serious disability or die after a stay in the intensive care unit (ICU), new research reveals."This important research finding sheds light on a crucial health care issue that has become more dire during the COVID-19 pandemic," said Dr. E. Albert Reece, dean of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, in Baltimore. "We need to find innovative ways to socially connect with our older, more isolated patients after they suffer through a critical illness. Further research is needed to determine which interventions work best."Social isolation has long been recognized as a public health concern that can lead to development of impaired thinking, disability and frailty in...

WEDNESDAY, Sept. 15, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Patients with B-cell blood cancers who did not make antibodies to COVID-19 after two shots of vaccine may find that a third shot does the trick, new research finds.More than half the patients who had failed to respond to the first two shots had a positive response to the third, or booster, shot, according to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society study."The additional COVID-19 vaccine dose appears to be improving immune response in many people with blood cancer -- one of many conditions that can suppress a person's immune system," said study author Dr. Gwen Nichols, chief medical officer at the society."However, while vaccination offers protection to the majority of blood cancer patients, some will not mount a full antibody response even with this...

WEDNESDAY, Sept. 15, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- When Americans are eligible for Medicare at age 65, they see a significant drop in their out-of-pocket medical costs.Lowering the eligibility age would save even more, especially for people with the highest out-of-pocket costs, according to a new study."Medicare really improves financial risk protection for older adults, and reducing the age of Medicare eligibility would go a long way in reducing the financial burden of health care spending for those who are not quite 65," said lead author Dr. John Scott. He is an assistant professor of cardiac surgery at the University of Michigan Medical School, in Ann Arbor.For the study, Scott's team looked at out-of-pocket health care costs for people between their late 50s and early 70s, including...