“Tickle me, Earmo,” by Gary Tetz, McKnight’s LTC News

“’EAR ‘TICKLING’ MAY SLOW EFFECT OF AGING ON THE NERVOUS SYSTEM’: As I read this, my overactive imagination conjured up a therapy situation involving a pink feather boa, seductively administered by a velvet-voiced supermodel into my auditory canal. Oh, and it would also make me live forever and is reimbursable under PDPM [Patient Directed Payment Model, the radical new reimbursement system about to be imposed on providers by CMS]. But the photo that ran with the article communicated something entirely different. It was just a guy with electrodes clipped to his ear, receiving a painless electrical current. The concept turns out to be about as enticing as plugging in the vacuum cleaner. Useful perhaps, but far from the provocative promise of the headline. But let’s move past that, and talk about the science.”

LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform):

A little LTC humor to lighten your day.