Dream Chocolates

Posted on May 29, 2011 by john graham

It has to be too good to be true – anti-wrinkle chocolates.

Just 3 a day smoothes wrinkles away!  Not only that, research on this new product also suggests it may lower blood pressure and improve memory.

This could be the most important discovery in this “century of ageing”.  Still, don’t start getting your hopes up too soon.  The health warning that comes with the research, is that it is closely linked to chocolate manufacturers.

You may save pounds on anti-wrinkle cream but you may also have to get on one of those pensioners exercise bikes to shed the pounds you put on.

Posted in HEALTH | Tagged , | 4 Comments

“A Public Inconvenience”

Posted on May 25, 2011 by john graham

Bladder weakness is a cause of great inconvenience and embarrassment to many elderly people.  It often limits their ability to go out because of the difficulty of finding a public toilet when you need one.  The fact that Local Authorities are closing down so many public toilets shows that they either don’t understand or do not care about the needs of the older generation.

Over 17% of people over the age of 40 have bladder problems which mean they need to go to the loo frequently and urgently.  The condition affects three times as many women as men.

Now a skin patch has been developed to treat overactive bladders.  Applied twice a week to the stomach, it reduces the symptoms by relaxing the bladder muscles.  It’s called a Kenters patch.  At £27 per month it’s not cheap but it will reduce a lot of stress and worry and enable people to be less isolated in their communities.  It could also save on incontinence pads at between 70p and £1 a time and your bum won’t look so big when you are wearing patches.  Should also save me 30p a pee at Euston Station, especially when I have to queue at the change machine.  The delicate indignities of old age ! 

This should not be a taboo subject.  It is a major limitation on the way so many elderly people have to live their lives.

Posted in ELDERLY UK POLICY, HEALTH | 4 Comments

Mountains and Molehills

Posted on May 22, 2011 by john graham

I went for a walk this morning for the first time since I retired six months ago.  At the very time when I had the time to go walking I stopped walking.  When you have all the time in the world, time disappears.  When there are no obsticles in your way it’s easy to invent some.  It’s too early; it’s too late; it’s too cold; it’s too hot; there is too much traffic on the road.  It’s dangerous in the misty morning.  There is something I want to watch on the news.  I can’t fnd my walking shoes.  It’s slippery underfoot.  There’s no fruit to take with me.  I have no apple for the horses.  Where is my asthma puffer?  Best of all perhaps and the most frequently used is “I will do it tomorrow”.

I am sure I must have thought of hundreds more excuses.  It’s easy to make mountains out of molehills, especially when you don’t really want to do something but you feel you should.

Three miles today felt like 30 miles and the slight hill half way around the walk seemed like the north face of the Eiger.  It took me longer than in the past and by the time I got back home, my legs ached a bit and I was hot and tired.  But these thoughts were dwarfed by a real sence of achievement.

As we get older it is not difficult to see more and more barriers rising before us as our age advances.  Excuses are more frequently found and “taking it easy” can become your watchword.  Molehills can quickly become mountains, if we want them to.

Fortunately, I have been lucky enough to see many older people belying their age and overcoming adversity in their lives.  Achieving things they never imagined they could do.  From pottery to poetry; gambling in Las Vegas to walking on the Great Wall of China; from swimming with sharks to skiing with Eddie the Eagle, climbing and abseiling rock walls at an outward bound centre in Exmoor to looping the loop in a glider at 93.  Over the years at ExtraCare, I have been priviliged to see literally hundreds of elderly people with every kind of frailty overcome their age and apprehensions to conquer amazing new challenges in later life.

Let’s carry on turning mountains into molehills and then there will be no more excuses left for me.

Posted in SMILES | 2 Comments

“Preach what you Practice”

Posted on May 17, 2011 by john graham

Somewhat ironically Esmee Russell recently published a blog on the Age UK website entitled “Food for Thought”.   It reflects the comments Age UK received when they attended the Royal College of Nursing Conference, in response to questions about why older patients are malnourished in the NHS.   According to some statistics, 185,000 people left hospital in 2008-09 malnourished .

The usual excuses were trotted out by the nurses they spoke to:-

  • “The food is poor quality”
  • “We need more money spent on food”
  • “Meal times are too short”
  • “There are not enough nurses to feed residents who need help”

These are hardly rocket science matters to solve, so what is fundamentally behind the issue?  The basic problem is a lack of leadership.  The nursing profession has been deflected by the RCN into chasing academic qualifications at the expense of patient care.  Meanwhile, the RCN has also tied NHS managers in knots over rigid personnel practices and a concern for their own liability, rather than ensuring that the patients’ needs come first.

The nurse matrons of old would never have allowed this to happen !

There is a supreme irony in Age UK reporting on this, especially when they had earlier produced a very good report on malnutrition in the NHS.

At their own Annual Conference, “Agenda for Later Life 2011”, they had a perfect opportunity to question Jo Webber, the Deputy Director of the National Health Confederation, who was one of their platform speakers.  Instead, they allowed her to tell everyone how well the NHS was doing,  how committed the staff were to learning lessons and  how patient satisfaction was very high.

Whether out of wrong-headed politeness or misplaced tactics, there was not a murmur about malnutrition and Jo Webber walked away with her head still in the clouds.

If malnutrition doesn’t stir Age UK into some firebrand preaching, what will?

                                               Where is the Age UK rage?

Posted in HEALTH | Tagged | 3 Comments

“Fruitful Research” 4

Posted on May 15, 2011 by john graham

Baylor in Texas must be the carrot growing capital of America.  So here’s a message for my gun-toteing, cattle ranching, oil-prospecting cowboy friend John T. in Pampa, Texas.  When the oil runs out you can always turn to carrot farming, providing you can shoot all those gophers first 🙂

Scientists at Baylor College found that overweight people who drank a glass of carrot juice a day shed 4 lbs in 12 weeks.

 

Posted in SMILES | Tagged , | 7 Comments

“Investing in old age”

Posted on May 11, 2011 by john graham

You know that the age of old age has arrived when investors start investing in it.  It is not my intention on this website to give advice on where to put your money.  In my mind it’s just another form of gambling and although I have no objection to it in principle, I don’t believe in wasting my hard-earned money on risks I can’t assess.

So it was interesting to see in the financial press recently that several heavyweight financial institutions – Swiss Banks – are launching investment funds which focus on The Ageing Population and how they will spend their money in the years ahead.

The funds interests seem well thought out, if rather predictable – enjoying life, health and savings.

Everything from:-

Artificial Limbs………………………………to……………………….antiques
Botox …………………………………………..to………………………. bandages
Cruises………………………………………… to………………………..continence pads
Dominoes ……………………………………..to………………………..
Electric wheelchairs……………………….to……………………….. energy drinks
Fractured femurs…………………………..to………………………..face creams
Glasses………………………………………… to……………………….. gardening
Hip operations……………………………… to……………………….. hearing aids
Investment……………………………………to………………………..Incontinence pads
J
K
L
Magnifying glasses …………………….to ………………………memory clinics
N
O
Prosthetic limbs …………………….to………………………………pick me up tonics
Quorn…………………………………………..to………………………..quiz books
R
Stair Lifts …………………………………….to………………………spectacle wipes
Television……………………………………..to…………………………..TV dinners
U
Vitamin supplements…………………….. to……………………….. Viagra
Wrinkle creams……………………………….to…………
X
Y
Zimmer frames……………………………to …………………..zip fasteners

 

Posted in ELDERLY MARKET | Tagged | 3 Comments

“Don’t let them eat cake”

Posted on May 8, 2011 by john graham

Recent research in America has re-affirmed that being overweight increases your risk of getting diabetes by 60%!  Perhaps more importantly a high fat diet can also lead to damaged brain cells, which play a major role in loss of memory.

According to the Alzheimer’s Society, “People who are overweight at 60 are twice as likely to develop dementia at 75.”

I guess Marie Antoinette did not do her subjects any favours by encouraging them to eat cake.

The same piece of research from North Western University in Chicago also concluded that pear shaped women were likely to suffer from higher levels of memory loss.  It puts a whole new significance into the answer to the question – “Does my bum look big in this ?

At first glance this research seems at odds with my own experience.  I would say the majority of sufferers with dementia in residential care are more likely to be underweight than obese.

Is this to do with them losing weight after they develop the illness ?

Is it a physical symptom of the disease ?

Or more to do with lack of encouragement and assistance to eat ?

Posted in HEALTH | Tagged | 3 Comments

“A Die-Lemma”

Posted on May 6, 2011 by john graham

Dying is not a subject most people want to contemplate.  It engenders sad emotions and fearful prospects.  Nonetheless, it is a subject which we will all have to face more frequently as our population ages.

What prompted me to write this blog was a short three paragraph piece in The Daily Telegraph on the 19 April – just a page filler – not a big news story.  The report covered the fact that a Primary Care Trust in North Essex had suggested to care homes that they should not dial 999 when an elderly person was dying, providing they held a “do not resuscitate” form from a resident, their family or a doctor.  The suggestion was that care homes were ignoring such requests and dialing the emergency services anyway.

I am sure this policy is well intended.  It is certainly true that most people would prefer to die at home.  Whereas currently the majority of people die in hospital, all too often in desperate circumstances.  Therefore you can sympathise with GPs / PCTs who are trying to enable more people to die in their own homes.

The problem as ever is in the detail:-

Who decides when someone is dying ?

  • An unqualified care assistant on duty alone in the middle of the night ?
  • An about-to-be-bereaved relative in a late night phone call ?
  • A local doctor covering the night shift who has never met the resident before ?

Who waits in the wings to pass judgement ?

  • The care home owners rightly fearful of ending up in a court action over negligent care ?
  • The Care Quality Commission every ready to be holier than thou with the benefit of hindsight ?
  • The coroner at an inquest weighing the opinions of all the people who weren’t there ?
  • The no-win-no-fee lawyers ever eager for the next lucrative case which can be made to drag on for months / years ?

With these witnesses and prosecutors behind you, it is a very bold person who can make a compassionate decision on life or death.

The medical profession is more and more able to prolong life at all costs, while the legal profession is increasingly geared to assigning blame at great expense.  An unholy alliance accidentally designed to ensure elderly people do not die with dignity in their own homes.

 

Posted in Assisted Suicide | Tagged | 4 Comments

“Southern Cross Card Play”

Posted on May 3, 2011 by john graham

In the weeks following my blog “Southern Cross Poker Game” (see 5 April 2011), there have been a few cards played but no winning moves just yet.

Southern Cross Management – made the first move when their Chairman resigned and was replaced by another financier from the existing board – not exactly indicating a will to change their approach

At the same time the Executive Directors were “strengthened” with a new Operations Director – with a limited background in nursing care

and a Publications Director – which sounds like a sticking plaster solution if ever there was one.

All this misses the point of why the Southern Cross Homes are failing.  Firstly because of avaricious financial agreements which promise to pay disastrously high racked up rental agreements – agreements made by the same financial wizards.

Secondly, standards of care are not maintained to high enough levels, which is why the Care Quality Commission are closing so many homes to new admissions (40 at the latest count) – this first play of the cards hardly inspires confidence.  It rather more suggests panic – deck chairs and titanic comes to mind.

Bankers and vulture capitalists (the landlords) – these money men do not move quickly and they are known for keeping their card close to their treasure chests.  They had their first card snatched from their hand by Southern Cross Management when they unilaterally decided to stop paying rent for a month.  The landlords retrospectively agreed not to take action to foreclose for a month – not that they had too much option, except to spit feathers.

Meanwhile they flag up their interest in finding another operator – a bluff if ever there was one.  This is a business they badly misread when they got into it – and now it is not easy to get out.

The Care Quality Commission, the inexperienced player – the butterfly in the game – continues to close admissions to more homes but has no strong card to play without Government approval.  In the meantime, it is working to offload the problem by asking Local Authorities what they will do if Southern Cross goes bust – it’s called contingency planning or buck passing.  The S..T and the fan have not met yet.

The Department of Health – Still sits tight holding the strongest hand – an agreement to use beds for NHS patients – but first there needs to be significant concessions by the money men and no hand can be played by Government until after the May elections.  Even after that a radical change like this is not one to be countenanced quickly.

So Southern Cross residents are left as chips in a phony war of bluff and counter bluff.

 

Posted in Residential Care | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

“Mouse Traps become bridges”

Posted on May 1, 2011 by john graham

The older generation grew up in an era when mouse traps were an every day piece of household equipment.  Mice were a pest and the top cat was the best “mouser”.  It is little wonder that people get grumpy about change when it appears that in spite of these times of austerity, mice now have rights too.

A recent planning permission for a housing development in Somerset required the developer, Taylor Woodrow, to set aside £500,000 to build a “special bridge” for the safe passage of doormice.  As Tom from Disney’s cartoon used to say “I hate them mices to pieces!”

In my many years of building retirement housing, I have experienced significant delays to projects required by planning authorities, who seem to have little regard for cost.  Here are some examples – a colony of swifts were given time to nest and delayed a £30m project at a cost of hundreds of thousands of pounds in increased construction costs; lucky newts were humanely caught and moved to a new habitat whilst elderly people waited another 12 months before their new homes could be built; and finally bats were searched for in vain and never found but at least the environmental consultants racked up significant fees.  I am in favour of protection of wildlife but isn’t this all being taken too far.  Has common sense gone out of the window.

Have we gone completely mad – don’t you think that the money wasted in delays could have built many more social houses for people in need?

Posted in GRUMBLES | 1 Comment