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GrumbleSmiles is a Charitable Trust whose primary aim is to develop new solutions to social isolation amongst older people. The objective of our new project is to establish a social network within Coventry that will enable members to connect and help … Continue reading
I have written a lot since starting this blog about research into the right foods for maintaining a healthy diet in later life. I have a strong self-interest in it, even though I am certainly not a health food fanatic, nor someone who can stick to a diet for long. Gradually as the years have advanced, so have the pounds. Advice about keeping fit and exercise also largely falls on deaf ears.
So today I found a new piece of research from Leeds University, that is particularly unwelcome —– eat a bowl of bran a day to avoid a stroke. I am sure it is good advice that I should be reminded of every time I wake up, but have the researchers eaten bran themselves ? I guess not, otherwise they would know why people don’t eat it ! It is like eating cardboard, which must be why so few people keep it up for long. Little children stop eating it after about 6 months or certainly as soon as they can get down from the table by themselves.
The important message behind this research is that 150,000 people in the UK suffer a stroke each year. Most of these are over 65 and although only one in five people die from strokes, many others are left with disabilities.
The key issue is to have a regular intake of fibre. My Dad worked at ICI Fibres but I think they were plastic 🙂
It is not so much “All Bran” as no bran for me. Fruit is a good alternative. (Click on “FRUITFUL RESEARCH” in the TAG CLOUD).
The other option mentioned by the researchers is half a can of baked beans a day. Trouble for me is that I usually accompany that with sausage, bacon, egg and fried bread, which I guess defeats the object !
My friend Pilly Galore would be delighted to read that GPs are continuing to prescribe lots of sleeping pills to elderly people. (See my earlier blogs by clicking in the TAG CLOUD on PILLS).
Around 10 million sleeping pill prescriptions are issued every year. I think it is the “go away” pill for GPs who don’t take the time to find out why people are not sleeping. The problem is that these pills don’t just make you sleep, they can also lead to increased falls and fractures. They are intended as a short-term intervention but up to 30% of patients remain on them for the long-term.
Two thirds of insomnia sufferers have never had their drugs reviewed, nor have they been offered alternative treatments such as relaxation techniques, sleep education or psychological therapy.
80% of insomnia patients, half of whom were over 65, rated their quality of sleep while taking sleeping pills was bad or very bad and half reported suffering from tiredness during the day.
The NHS spends £50 million every year on sleeping pills !
My friend Pilly Galore would be delighted to read that GPs are continuing to prescribe lots of sleeping pills to elderly people. (See my earlier blogs by clicking in the TAG CLOUD on PILLS).
Around 10 million sleeping pill prescriptions are issued every year. I think it is the “go away” pill for GPs who don’t take the time to find out why people are not sleeping. The problem is that these pills don’t just make you sleep, they can also lead to increased falls and fractures. They are intended as a short-term intervention but up to 30% of patients remain on them for the long-term.
Two thirds of insomnia sufferers have never had their drugs reviewed, nor have they been offered alternative treatments such as relaxation techniques, sleep education or psychological therapy.
80% of insomnia patients, half of whom were over 65, rated their quality of sleep while taking sleeping pills was bad or very bad and half reported suffering from tiredness during the day.
The NHS spends £50 million every year on sleeping pills !
When I left university in 1979, my first job was working for a Local Authority in Nottingham. It was a great job to start out my working career but in my early twenties, I certainly was not thinking about retirement. Luckily I was enrolled in the public sector pension scheme without me really realising it. I was not hoodwinked, it was a paternalistic gesture and almost everybody accepted joining, even though you paid a small amount of your salary into the pension each month. Now 40 years later I am glad I did, it pays me £10,000 a year! ( for ten years of hard work — not a great return, but better than a kick in the pants ! )
BUT —- I am soon to become a pariah. A burden on society. Nobody told me that the Government who promised me the pension, was not actually saving any money towards it. Now the current working generation of taxpayers are going to have to pick up the tab. I may not be able to walk down the street without feeling guilty.
From April 2011 to April 2012, the total cost of the state pensions was £8 billion. Obviously I don’t receive all of it. By 2017/18 this figure will have risen to £16.2 billion. I am in for a BONANZA !
I got these figures from the Government Office of Budget Responsibility. Sadly this new office was only formed a few years ago and before that previous Governments did not act responsibly towards pensioners. Promising things they could not afford to pay for.
Local Authority pensioners may well be castigated for years to come for their “gold-plated pensions”. Unless of course the next Government raises the state retirement age to 90 and solves the problem at a stroke !
P.S. The report that inspired this blog came from a think tank called the C.P.S. — Centre for Policy Studies, and they ominously forecast that by 2018 the full cost of public sector pensions will be £39 bilion. Maybe the C.P.S. should really by the Crown Prosecution Service. They could seek to convict all current public sector workers of fraudulently extracting money from the taxpayer. Retired public sector pensioners, like me, could all be prosecuted for receiving stolen goods.
HAPPY DAYS AHEAD 😀
Years ago, or maybe it is just in my rose-tinted imagination, I seem to think that if you wanted to see your Doctor, your own personal Doctor, you just turned up at the surgery and after a little wait, ……. there he was !!!! What is more, if you were too ill to visit the surgery, he would come out and see you in your own home !!!! NAH I must be dreaming.
Then things got a bit busier and GP’s all huddled up in group practices. So you did not always see your own Doctor. Also to keep the patients in order, they appointed security guards, called receptionists, who were especially recruited for their customer-not-friendly skills. Their main job seemed to be to hold back the tide of ill patients wanting to see the Doctor.
It wasn’t long before the hard pressed receptionists and their over-worked GP’s came up with another wheeze to keep the irritatingly ill patients at bay. The Appointments System, other wise known as “now see if you can get through the door”. With this new approach most people got better before they managed to see the Doctor. Sadly a few didn’t make it at all.
The next big advance in patient care was the appointment of Locum Doctors to cover out-of-hours calls. They were selected because of their complete lack of knowledge of the patients. This enables them to take an entirely independent view of whether you are wasting the Doctors time. If not they will frequently send you off to A&E, which must partly explain the significant rise in people turning up at hospitals unannounced.
Then the Government stepped in with a big “we must cut the waiting time boot”, and banned appointment lists. Now all you had to do was ring up first thing in the morning and ask to see the Doctor. Along with the other 550 ill people who wanted to see the Doctor on the same day and were also ringing in. After hanging on the phone for an hour or so, you eventually got through to the security guard, who told you that all the appointments were taken and you should ring back first thing tomorrow.
This system didn’t work very well, so they have come up with a new idea. It is called ……..
An appointment system !
But at least now the GP’s have the weekends off and are not disturbed in the night. Eventually patients will learn not to get ill at these inconvenient times .
A serious study of 2,700 retired Americans for over 16 years, eventually came up with some good advice to reduce the risk of heart disease and coronary problems.
Just take:-
or put more simply, eat more oily fish, like Salmon, Mackerel or Herring.
The researchers at Harvard and Washington Universities found it could increase life expectancy by more than two years.
Now all I need is a recipe for oily fish and strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries and cranberries.
(See my earlier blogs on healthy eating advice by clicking on “FRUITFUL RESEARCH” in the TAG CLOUD).
I have written a lot about older people’s over reliance on pills. (Click on “PILLS” in the TAG CLOUD). My favourite cartoon character in the GrumbleSmiles blog is “Pilly Galore” who is an elderly lady whose life revolves around pills. To her they have become a badge of importance, but also a point of contact with a lonely outside world. Pilly read in the newspaper about a new pill that is becoming very popular. In fact 128 million people around the world use them. One of the most popular varieties is made by a nice sounding company name APPLE. 
Pilly is going to see her friend and favourite GP tomorrow to see if he will prescribe her an apple tablet. It could turn out to be the best cure she has ever given her to treat her loneliness.
Tablets better than pills
A shocking study by the University of Tokyo was published recently about balding men. I am sure there is no truth in it. I would not be surprised if the research was commissioned by the Japanese Association of Hairdressers out of sheer spite.
According to this dubious research, men who go bald on the crown of their head, have a 50% increased risk of heart disease. Those with receding hairlines only had a 22% increased risk. Alarmingly, those with receding hairlines and a bald crown top were 69% more at risk. It is all to do with testosterone.
No wonder Wayne Rooney, Shane Warne and Graham Gooch spent all that money on hair transplants.
I prefer the research that says men with high levels of testosterone are great sportsmen and great lovers.
But I might buy a wig tomorrow just in case there is any truth in the research :-).
I am sitting in my village home. It is a long time ago that I wrote about a survey suggesting that living longer was related to living in the country. (See “76th Birthday? Move to the Country” by clicking on May 2010 in the Archive).
Now a recent survey by property agents Rightmove of 40,000 homeowners, identified 10 locations where people were happiest to live. Harrogate in Yorkshire topped the list and generally Northerners were happier than people who live in the South. Although Truro, Exeter and Bath as well as St Albans, Ipswich, Kingston upon Thames, Bromley and Worcester were also in the top ten. Hereford was regarded as the safest place to live.
The key issues in determining their popularity were safety, neighbourliness, property condition and recreational opportunity.
The lowest rated locations were mainly in the Greater London area, probably because living spaces were smaller and as a result of safety fears.
The lesson from this survey for older people is not really about where to live because most people in retirement don’t want to move anywhere. They would prefer to stay living in their own home, or if they do move then they wish to stay close to their roots. A move away to the country or a new location altogether is only for the few.
What makes for an Age Friendly location is your family, your friends, your neighbourhood and the roots you have put down. It is about emotion not property and the truth is you can be happy in any location if it feels like a safe and secure home.
In retirement, new horizons don’t have to mean new locations, just a new outlook on life.
