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It's a sunny autumn afternoon and a good time to make apple crisp at Pathstone Living, a memory care facility and nursing home in Mankato, Minnesota. Activities staffer Jessica Abbott gathers half a dozen older women at a counter in the dining area, where the soundtrack is mostly music they could have fox-trotted to back in the day. ... That can help to relieve the agitation common in some people with Alzheimer's or other forms of dementia — agitation that in other nursing homes might be managed with antipsychotic drugs. (Jaffe, 12/10)

Brittany Maynard and the Death With Dignity movement have received significant attention this fall, but one stalwart in end-of-life care says the push for physician-assisted suicide is premature, and distracts from a much more important issue. Joanne Lynn, a geriatrician, hospice physician, former Medicare medical director, and author, has spent her career fighting to improve care of the dying. She says laws such as Oregon's - allowing terminally ill, mentally competent people such as Maynard, with six months or less to live, to end their lives - would not be applicable to most Americans. ... Suffering from brain cancer, Maynard, 29, ended her life Nov. 1. (Vitez, 12/9)

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is handing out $36.3 million to more than 1,000 health centers across the country that have significantly improved the quality of their patient care. The health centers that received funding have all proven “high levels of quality performance” that aligns with the government’s attempts to strengthen care and cut costs under ObamaCare, according to a release Tuesday from HHS. (Ferris, 12/9)