Elderly

The story of a 24-year-old Georgia graduate student fighting a flesh-eating disease has prompted a microbiologist with the Veterans Affairs Maryland Health Care System to speak out about the infection. Aimee Copeland lost most of her left leg after the flesh-eating bacteria necrotizing faciitis is believed to have entered a cut on her leg, according to the Associated Press, which reports she may also have to have her fingers amputated. The waterborne bacteria Aeromonas hydrophila is believed to have caused the infection.

The two well-dressed men arrived at the elderly man's Southwest Baltimore home in the morning, armed with a clipboard and searching for a woman who they said was wanted by authorities.  Police say it was a scam, and the two suspects quietly made off with an undisclosed amount of cash.  The incident occurred April 23, in the 1100 block of Cooks Lane in the West Hills neighborhood near the Baltimore County line. The suspects, described as black men between the ages of 40 and 50 and wearing blue blazers, had a clipboard with pictures of people and said they were searching for a woman, police said.

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?

Eliyahu Werdesheim, one of two brothers accused of assaulting a teenager in Northwest Baltimore, was convicted Thursday of false imprisonment and second-degree assault, in a case that has sparked neighborhood tensions and raised questions about a community patrol group. The second brother, Avi Werdesheim, was cleared of all charges. Eliyahu, 24, and Avi, 22, each had been charged with second-degree assault, false imprisonment and carrying a deadly weapon — a walkie-talkie issued by the neighborhood watch group Shomrim — with the intent to injure Corey Ausby, who was 15 at the time.

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 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.

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 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.

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.

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.

A single car crash in Gambrills Monday has claimed the life of an elderly female passenger and critically injured the driver. The car was traveling down the driveway to an underground parking garage at about 4:50 p.m., when it struck a wall of the building in the 2600 block of Chapel Lake Drive, police said. Both victims, who, police said, are related, were taken to University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where the woman died. The elderly driver remains in critical condition.

An elderly man was shot early Wednesday when he confronted an intruder at his home in Severn, police said. The man's daughter, who lives nearby, alerted police at 4:20 a.m. that her 82-year-old father was shot in the leg while struggling with the burglar, who police said had broken into the home in the 1300 block of Sleepy Hollow Road. The victim told police that he was investigating a noise in the kitchen when an unknown man confronted him. During the ensuing struggle, the man wrestled a handgun away from the victim, who police said was shot with what investigators think was his own weapon.

A Dundalk man is not guilty of killing his 89-year-old neighbor, a Baltimore County judge ruled Wednesday after two days of testimony in a 2010 murder case. Michael W. Hester, who was charged with first-degree murder in the stabbing death of Eleanor Marie Haley, said he is eager to rebuild his life. He said he entered Haley's house and found her dead after seeing water coming from her back door. He then called 911. Prosecutors argued during the trial that he killed Haley and turned on the water - a lawn sprinkler - to explain his presence at her home in the 7200 block of York Drive.

An elderly man who mistakenly drove onto the light rail tracks in Lutherville was pulled to safety Monday evening by passersby shortly before a train slammed into his car, police and witnesses said. Around 7:45, an 83-year-old man drove onto the tracks near Seminary Avenue and Front Avenue, Maryland Transit Administration spokesman Terry Owens said. "The elderly gentleman became disoriented in the fog and wound up on the light rail tracks," he said. Passersby helped the man from his car before a light rail train crashed into the vehicle, Owens said.

I enjoy reading the various editorials and commentaries published in The Sun, but I was especially moved by Dee Wright's op-ed describing the life and death of Mary Hines ("Where was Mary Hines' 'village'?" Jan. 16). Ms. Hines, an 84-year-old retired educator who was destitute and in need, was murdered. I'm left with the same questions as Ms. Wright: What did Ms. Hines' so-called friends and family do to help in her final years of heartache and pain? Not much. Talk is cheap!

Social worker Chris Muldowney and film professor Christopher Llewellyn Reed have found a way to translate their love of movies into, among other things, groceries, fire insurance, hearing aids, a mattress, a new window, the vet bill for a beloved cat and flowers for a 100th birthday. Their monthly donation-only film series in Baltimore has generated more than $35,000 since 2005 to help needy seniors who might otherwise wait two years for an official helping hand. Muldowney manages elder case workers for Family and Children's Services of Central Maryland, a private nonprofit that has, since 1849, helped needy families, children and seniors.

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.

WASHINGTON - The time when aging baby boomers will place an overwhelming demand on the United States' long-term care system might be more than two decades away, a report released yesterday said. Improved socioeconomic conditions and higher education levels among the baby boom generation have contributed to a decrease in disability rates, according to the report by AARP, the nation's largest lobbying group for older people. Previous studies had predicted a substantial increase in demand for long-term support services as the 76 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964 reach the ages of 75 to 80. The oldest baby boomers will reach age 75 in 2021.

In an effort to drum up interest in his presidential bid for the 1968 elections, Michigan's governor, George Romney - Mitt Romney's father - went into the belly of the beast. During the summer of 1967, the elder Romney gave a stump speech in San Francisco's Golden Gate panhandle, a couple of blocks from Haight and Ashbury, the epicenter of hippiedom. I was there the day that several buses pulled up at the panhandle and disgorged George Romney, his entourage and reporters. No vote-getting reason could possibly justify Romney's being there, in front of this group of people, most of whom had probably never voted.

Baltimore County police on Sunday identified Elisie Laura Green, 83, as the pedestrian victim of a fatal car crash that occurred Friday afternoon in Dundalk. Green, who lived on the 100 block of Center Place, was crossing from the west curb to the east curb of Dundalk Avenue, near the intersection with Baltimore Avenue, at about 5 p.m. when she was struck by a gold 1999 Saturn traveling northbound, police said. She was taken to Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.