At various locations throughout Edinburgh and West Lothian, groups people over the age of 50, are honing their computer skills, in particular the applications of the internet, at a series of unique drop-in computer clubs. Margot Stewart from Third Age … Continue reading →
Clot-busting therapies for heart attacks do not always work as well with strokes, says James LeFanu
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A PENSIONER claims the problem of rubbish being illegally dumped across the city has never been so bad.Barrie Harrington, chairman of Normacot Residents' Association, said the worst areas in Normacot are Rothesay Street, Furnace Road and Argyll Street.The 69-year-old, pictured below, said: "Unfortunately, a few people started it and it's now becoming the norm."Rather than pay the council to take ...
A TELEPHONE befriending scheme for elderly and isolated people is celebrating a successful first year.
Tens of thousands of people over 52 believe they receive the worst treatment from the NHS as one in 10 say doctors and nurses write them off because of their age.
"Those 15 minutes of timetabled care are not enough" , said Sally! "What I'd really like is to have a hot meal to share with somebody. And I'd love to have my bed changed more often."- Ms Sally Lubanov in the Radio 4 interview today. The words of Ms Sally Lubanov have hit several listeners hard this morning. Ms Lubanov is not the only housebound elderly member in our society who would really ...
Objectives: to examine the association between subjective and objective measures of sleep and wake and other health parameters in a cohort of the very old.
Design: a population-based cohort study.
Setting: primary care, North East England.
Participants: four hundred and twenty-one men and women, aged 87–89, recruited to the Newcastle 85+ Study cohort.
Methods: sleep questionnaires were administered and sleep–wake patterns were assessed over 5–7 days with a novel wrist triaxial accelerometer. Associations between sleep measures and various health parameters, including mortality at 24 months, were examined.
Results: only 16% of participants perceived their sleep as severely disturbed as assessed with questionnaire responses. Wrist accelerometry showed marked variation between normal and abnormal sleep–wake cycles that did not correlate with the participants' perception of sleep. Impaired sleep–wake cycles were significantly associated with cognitive impairment, disability, depression, increased falls, body mass index and arthritis but not with any other specific disease markers and with decreased survival.
Conclusions: commonly used sleep questionnaires do not differentiate well between those with objectively determined disturbance of sleep–wake cycles and those with normal cycles. Abnormal sleep–wake patterns are associated with institutionalisation, cognitive impairment, disability, depression and arthritis but not with other diseases; there is also an association with reduced survival.
