• Intimacy and Aging
• Interactive Exercise: Games Get Physical
• Boost Health: Not Just Kid Stuff
• Mixed Blessing: Adding Ultrasound

Winter 2008

Intimacy and Aging: Sex May Get Better With Age

You may be getting older, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a satisfactory sex life. USC’s Merle H. Bensinger Professor of Gerontology and Psychology Bob G. Knight, Ph.D., has spent much of his career studying how the dynamics of physical intimacy change with age. In spite of age-related physical changes to the body, he has found that older couples can enjoy a healthy and robust sex life.

“Older couples know far more about their bodies,” notes Knight. With this knowledge come more confidence and comfort in their sexuality. Older couples have much to look forward to in terms of intimacy as they age. They’ll find “more time for intimacy, a slower, more relaxed approach to sex, and a greater integration of sex and emotional intimacy,” he says. More insights into sexuality and aging, including the pros and cons of drugs like Viagra, can be found in Knight’s full interview, available at www.youtube.com/user/USCDavis and click on USC Davis Gerontology-Bob Knight.

[Interactive Exercise]: Games Get Physical

Now you can play soccer, ski, tightrope walk, box, run and snowboard in the privacy of your own home – using new interactive digital games. “Games have always provided a fun way for families to enjoy each other’s company. The emerging obesity epidemic has created an incentive to create games that are fun but also require more physical activity,” says Thomas Valente, Ph.D., a professor in the Institute for Prevention Research and the Department of Preventive Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC.

Valente is co-principal investigator on a research project, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, to explore how interactive digital games could be designed to improve players’ health behaviors and outcomes. The Wellness Partners game, developed by the USC School of Cinematic Arts, the Keck School of Medicine and the USC School of Social Work, will probe the effectiveness of mobile games and online social networks to promote lifestyle changes that result in greater physical activity.

[Boost Health]: Not Just Kid Stuff

Believed by many to be an uncomfortable task only for children to endure, some immunizations necessitate a “booster” shot every five or 10 years into adulthood. According to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, far too few adults are getting shots that can prevent serious illnesses. For example, only 2.1 percent of adults are immunized against diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus—all preventable with a shot. “An immunization activates antibodies to fight infection if necessary, but eventually, these antibodies may die off,” explains John L. Brodhead Jr., M.D., associate professor of internal medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. “Many adults have a false sense of security thinking that if they got shots as a kid, they’re covered.” In addition to booster shots, some new vaccines have been developed for adults, such as zostavax, for the shingles virus. Talk to your doctor about which vaccines may be right for you. Visit www.cdc.gov/vaccines for more information.

[Mixed Blessing] Adding Ultrasound

Adding an ultrasound examination to routine mammography for women at high risk for breast cancer revealed 28 percent more cancers than mammography alone, according to a new study. Participants were 25 years or older with a prior atypical breast biopsy and personal and/or family history of breast cancer.

“For women at elevated risk of breast cancer, we learned that ultrasound finds cancers not seen by mammography,” says Linda Hovanessian, M.D., associate professor of radiology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC and site principal investigator for the study. “However, we also learned that there is a significantly higher false-positive rate associated with the addition of an ultrasound exam. This means something suspicious was seen on the ultrasound which, as the result of a biopsy, turned out not to be cancer.”

The American Cancer Society recently recommended that certain women at very high risk for breast cancer be screened with magnetic resonance imaging. Neither MRI nor ultrasound is meant to replace mammography.

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