Elderly

Hattie Watts Johnson, a lifelong West Baltimore resident who spent more than 20 years caring for the homebound sick and elderly even as she battled brain cancer herself, died Oct. 20 of complications from the disease. She was 60. Hattie Watts grew up in the Edgar Allan Poe Homes on Lexington Street. Like many of her friends, she enjoyed going to the movies and dancing. But while most of her six brothers and sisters were playing, she would be at the homes of elderly neighbors, spending afternoons helping them with grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning and bathing, said her younger sister, Doretha Beckham, 53, of Ellicott City.

Police in Howard County are warning elderly residents to watch out for financial scams. The warning comes after an 86-year-old Elkridge man wired $151,000 to cover what he believed were taxes on a fake $1.6 million prize check, police said. Police are investigating the theft and fraud case. The victim has received letters and phone calls over the last month from people claiming to be from Publisher's Clearing House, company attorneys or IRS representatives, police said. The man was sent a fake prize check and told he would be able to cash the check once he paid the taxes and received an activation code.

In the "Around the Region" column one day last week, there was a small article "Man, 50, charged in Pikesville home invasions" written by Alison Knezevich. It spoke of home invasions and robberies of elderly residents in the Pikesville area. Elderly? In the first case, the elderly man was 65. The second couple was in their 80s. Who determines "elderly" at The Sun? Where is the cutoff? I'm 67, and I'm a senior, but I'm not elderly. Why would you even use an adjective with someone's age?

An elderly man and woman are being treated at Shock Trauma after they were struck by a car in Parkville on Saturday night, Baltimore County Police said. The pair was struck crossing Harford Road near Putty Hill Avenue, police said. The man, 80, was seriously injured; the woman suffered less serious injuries. Police said the driver remained at the scene and the accident is under investigation.

As a seasoned practitioner of deceptive politics, George Bush needs no assistance from us in defending himself against Bill Clinton's latest distortions. But the old folks do. Listen to the Democratic candidate as he blasts President Bush's timorous efforts to slow the budget-breaking, deficit-spawning rise in Medicare costs:"If you're one of the 30 million Americans who depends on Medicare, his [Mr. Bush's] budget makes you $2,000 poorer over the next five years," Governor Clinton told some elderly picnickers in Macon, Ga. this week.

A 21-year-old man was sentenced Tuesday to 30 years in prison for raping two elderly women while he was a teen under state supervision. Dwayne Price of the 600 block of Main St. in Dundalk had been arrested at least 11 times by the time he was 18 and had escaped custody twice, leading The Baltimore Sun to profile him in a 2008 article as an example of lapses within the Department of Juvenile Services. He pleaded guilty Tuesday to raping a 73-year-old woman in her Baltimore home in 2005, then stealing $3 from her purse.

More than three dozen senior citizens gathered Wednesday at City Hall to protest the planned merger of Baltimore's agency on aging with the Health Department. Advocates fear that moving the Commission on Aging and Retirement Education into the larger department would result in fewer services for the elderly, despite official reassurances that programs would not be affected. Health Department officials, who testified at a City Council hearing after the rally, said the move would enable more efficient access to services.

A woman named Brenda Walker recently won a bureaucratic battle that could bode well for the ailing elderly of Baltimore County.For more than a year, Ms. Walker fought to gain the county's approval to expand from six to 15 the capacity of a senior housing facility she owns in Catonsville. In addition, she was faced with opposition from area residents who feared the facility would set a precedent for commercial enterprises in the neighborhood.Ms. Walker, who also runs a residence for 15 seniors in West Baltimore, had to cool her heels while County Executive Roger B. Hayden's administration dawdled over legislation to remove development and zoning regulations that have stymied efforts such as Ms. Walker's.

Baltimore County's Planning Board overwhelmingly rejected yesterday a Pikesville-area housing project for the elderly that has pitted a synagogue against many of its neighbors.Veteran planning officials called it the most bitter development dispute to come before the board in years, and both sides had become so entrenched in their positions that mediation efforts failed dismally.Beth Tfiloh Congregation, in the 3300 block of Old Court Road, wants to develop a 152-unit senior citizens housing center on a 35-acre site that already includes the synagogue and a school.

RIGHT THERE, sitting in his wheelchair in front of a slot machine, is an unforgettable old man. This visitor was already accustomed to seeing rows of silver heads working the slot machines as if they were stations on an assembly line. There are gamblers on canes, gamblers on walkers, and not a few in wheelchairs. But this one old guy distinguished himself: He had an oxygen tube going into his nose and was feeding quarters into the one-armed bandit as though it were an integral part of his life-support system.

Summer is almost here, and with it likely some blistering hot days. A recent study suggests the elderly should beware when the temperature spikes, because they face an increased risk of winding up in the emergency room short of breath on those days. And that's just a taste of what health problems to expect as global climate change cranks the heat up in many places. Researchers for Johns Hopkins, Harvard and Yale universities reviewed a nationwide health database of 12.5 million older Americans on Medicare and found that increases in outdoor temperatures raise the risk for the elderly of being rushed to the hospital with respiratory disorders.

The following is compiled from Howard County police reports. East Columbia Gerwing Lane, 9600 block, 11:53 a.m. April 24. Witness stated that as a mother and child were approaching the business an elderly white man, who was sitting at a picnic table, exposed himself. West Columbia Thistle Brook Court, 11000 block, between 11:45 p.m. April 25 and 6:45 a.m. April 26. Entry gained to an open garage. Cash, credit cards, computer equipment and a GPS unit stolen from an unlocked vehicle.

What does it require to get members of Congress to take action quickly and decisively on an issue of federal spending? Now we know. The possibility that they will be delayed in an airport terminal somewhere waiting for a flight out of town is apparently so abhorrent that the usual gridlock and party politics just don't apply. That's the take-away from last week's lightning-fast, lopsided bipartisan votes that transferred more than a quarter-billion dollars to the Federal Aviation Administration budget so that the agency would no longer have to furlough air traffic controllers.

It seems many people are in a hurry and don't make allowances for our older population. As much as a senior might want to move faster, their bodies cannot react or walk as fast as a younger person. I have seen the elderly trying to cross the street with someone beeping their horn at them or the driver getting far too close, intimidating the poor senior trying to move as fast as they can. I have witnessed impatient people in line behind the senior who tower over them as if it's going to make them pay faster.

Surgery on older people can be riskier than other generations. But it can be safely done if doctors take certain precautions. Dr. Mark Katlic, chief of surgery at Sinai Hospital of Baltimore and an expert on surgical care of patients 80 and older, talks about the risks involved. Is a patient ever too old for surgery? There is no age in years that makes a patient ineligible for needed surgery. Early in the last century, many surgeons held the view that age 50 was old! Now we are doing complex operations, even heart surgery, in patients in their 80s, 90s and into their 100s.

Adults who lose their hearing later in life also are more likely to have a hard time concentrating on a book or remembering a simple conversation, Johns Hopkins research has found. The same brain functions that affect hearing also may cause problems with memory and other cognitive function, according to the study, published this month in JAMA Internal Medicine. It is the latest to support a link between hearing loss and decline of memory. The Hopkins researchers said that many people view hearing loss as an inconvenience of old age but that it may also contribute to more serious health problems.

A former hosiery warehouse near the Canton waterfront in Baltimore will be converted to a $3 million residential complex for the elderly by 1994 if developer Frank Scarfield can secure the financing and building permits he needs to move ahead with construction.Baltimore's Planning Commission approved last week two pending City Council bills that would change the zoning and permitted land use of the property at 2108 to 2128 Boston St. so that Mr. Scarfield could construct a 58-unit apartment complex within the shell of the 80-year-old warehouse.

Residents of Columbia's Hickory Ridge village continue their fight against construction of an 89-unit apartment project for the elderly in that neighborhood -- the latest salvos coming at a session of the Howard County Board of Appeals last week.Developer Earl Armiger, of Orchard Development Corp., is seeking a special exception to build a three-story apartment complex on 18 acres between Owen Brown and Freetown Roads, across from the Hickory Ridge Shopping Center.Thursday's Board of Appeals hearing was a continuation from last month so that about 50 residents could testify in opposition to the development.

Howard County police are asking for the public's help in locating a elderly man who has been missing since Saturday afternoon, and have issued a Silver Alert in an attempt to find him. Huber Earl Smutz, Jr., 82, was reported missing around 3 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 19. According to police, a family member woke up around noon and Smutz was gone from his home in the 700 block of Driver Road in Marriottsville. He left in a 2007 silver Honda Accord with MD tag HYR743, police said. Smutz is described as a white male, balding, with straight gray hair and blue eyes, no facial hair and a medium build.

Two local residents have died in separate house fires this week, including an elderly man in a two-alarm blaze in the Jacksonville-area Thursday morning. According to the Baltimore County Fire department, the fire occurred just after midnight in a single-family home at the 5600 block of Sweet Air Road. Baltimore and Harford county fire officials responded to the heavy fire, and officials said that because there were no hydrants in the area extra crews were called to assist with water, which was shuttled from a nearby natural water source.