Senior Health Day

It is never "all normal indicators and no problems at all" that can be called health. Being able to live according to one's own wishes, being able to complete daily life independently, and having a companion to chat with is the core standard that this day really wants to convey.

Last week, when I was doing research on elderly health in the community, I met 72-year-old Aunt Zhang Guiying. She has suffered from type 2 diabetes for 11 years and degenerative knee disease for 3 years. In the past two years, the children at home were afraid that she would fall or eat the wrong things to raise her blood sugar. She had to pay for groceries, cooking, and paying water and electricity bills. Auntie sat in a daze at home every day except watching TV. Last year, she was diagnosed with mild depression during a physical examination. Her blood sugar fluctuated and her blood sugar fluctuated, and even the doctor couldn't adjust it. This year, the community is conducting a pilot health intervention for the elderly. I have invited my aunt to be a "sugar control promoter" and share my sugar control meals with sugar friends in the community every week. I also learned the sitting Baduanjin method suitable for elderly people with bad knees from a rehabilitation therapist. Now my aunt's fasting blood sugar is stable at around 6.5mmol/L. Although her knees still hurt occasionally, she goes to the community activity room every day with a cloth bag on her shoulder and smiles at everyone. Her condition is much better than last year.

You see, the same physical foundation, but the living conditions have changed, and the health status is completely different. This actually corresponds to the two different assessment ideas of the elderly health in the academic community. The traditional clinical path is more "disease-oriented" and puts the normalization of various physiological indicators first. For example, ordinary hypertensive patients should lower their blood pressure to below 130/80mmHg, and their fasting blood sugar should be controlled within 6.1mmol/L. The benefits of this standard It can minimize the risk of acute and severe illness, and is especially suitable for elderly people who have just undergone surgery or have severe cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. However, when applied to ordinary elderly people who account for more than 75% of people who live with the disease, it is easy to have a situation where "the indicators are good, but the person is not energetic". In recent years, researchers in functional medicine and geriatric medicine have increasingly advocated "function-oriented" assessment standards. They do not seek to keep all indicators within the normal range of young people, but focus on the daily living abilities of the elderly - whether they can dress and eat by themselves, whether they can walk 500 meters downstairs to buy groceries, whether they can remember to take medicine on time, and whether they have social activities to meet friends at least once a week. The weight of these indicators is much more important than 0.2 higher blood sugar and 5 mmHg higher blood pressure.

I talked about this matter with Dr. Li in the community before. He said that he encounters several cases every month where family members are more anxious than the elderly. Last year, a family member insisted on forcing an 82-year-old man who had smoked for 60 years to quit smoking, saying it was "for his health." As a result, he quit smoking for half a month. He couldn't eat or sleep. He lost almost 10 pounds and even got angry with his family. Lao Li tried to persuade him several times, saying that although the old man's lung function was not very good, the amount he smoked now was not large, just two cigarettes a day. After smoking for a lifetime, his body had long tolerated it. If he quit smoking, he would suffer an emotional breakdown. As his immunity weakened, he would easily get other diseases, which was not worth the gain. Later, the family members relaxed. The old man took a pony downstairs every day after dinner and smoked two cigarettes to chat with the old man. Within two months, he gained his weight back, and his lung function did not show any significant decline during the last review.

When many people talk about elderly health, their first reaction is to buy health care products and take the elderly for physical examinations. In fact, there is really no need to make it so complicated. I have seen many elderly people pile up tens of thousands of dollars of enzymes and fish oil in their homes. However, the kitchen threshold has tripped the elderly people several times, and the bathrooms do not even have anti-slip mats. Statistics from the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development last year said that more than 60% of falls among the elderly occurred at home. Spending several hundred yuan on aging-friendly renovations, such as adding armrests to the side of the sofa, wrapping sharp table corners, and laying a non-slip mat in the bathroom, is more effective than taking health supplements for a year. Oh, by the way, Peking University School of Public Health previously conducted an elderly health cohort study that followed for 5 years. The results showed that the elderly who can independently decide what they do every day and have at least one hobby have a 32% lower risk of developing dementia than the elderly who are "comprehensive care" and have nothing to do every day. This data is much more effective than many health care products that claim to "prevent Alzheimer's disease."

In fact, today is not a day that makes everyone nervous to buy supplements for the elderly to have a physical examination. Stop by your parents' house after work and don't rush to do housework as soon as you walk in. Ask them if there is anything they want to do recently that they haven't dared to try. Even if they want to go to the surrounding area with their old friend for two days, don't always say "Don't run around if you are not feeling well". Helping you look at the route and prepare some common medicines is more practical than saying "I'm doing it for you" 10,000 times.