Many diseases are not diseases, but normal aging. The director of a Beijing hospital gave five pieces of advice to the elderly :
You are not sick, you are getting old .. Many diseases you think are not diseases, but signals that the body is aging.
1. Poor memory is not Alzheimer’s disease, but a self-protection mechanism of the elderly brain. Don’t scare yourself. This is the brain getting old, not a disease. If you just forget where you put your keys, but you can find them yourself, it is not dementia.
2. Walking slowly and having unsteady legs and feet’ is not paralysis, but muscle degeneration. The solution is not to take medicine, but to move.
3. Insomnia is not a disease but the brain is adjusting its rhythm. It is a change in sleep structure. Don’t take sleeping pills indiscriminately. Long-term dependence on sleeping pills and other drugs to fall asleep will increase the risk of falls, cognitive impairment, etc. The best sleeping pill for the elderly is to get more sun during the day and maintain a regular schedule.
4. Body aches are not rheumatism, but a normal reaction to nerve aging.
5. Many elderly people say: My arms and legs hurt everywhere. Is it rheumatism or bone hyperplasia ?Bones do become loose and thin, but 99% of ‘body pain’ is not a disease, but a slow nerve conduction, which amplifies the pain. This is called central sensitization, a common physiological change in the elderly. Analgesics are not the solution. Exercise and physical therapy are the adjustment methods. You can recommend ‘foot bath + hot compress before bed + light massage’, which is more effective than taking medicine.
6. Abnormal physical examination’ is not a disease, but the index standards have not been updated.
7. The World Health Organization recommends that the physical examination indicators of the elderly should be relaxed. The same is true for cholesterol. The elderly have slightly higher cholesterol, but they live longer. Because cholesterol is the raw material for synthesizing hormones and cell membranes, too low a level can easily reduce immunity. The Guidelines for the Prevention and Treatment of Hypertension in China’ also clearly pointed out that the blood pressure reduction target for the elderly is <150/90 mmHg, not the standard of young people <140/90. Don’t treat aging as illness and don’t treat change as lesion
8. Aging is not a disease, it is a necessary path.
A few words should be said to the elderly and their children: First, remember, not all discomfort is a disease.
Second, the elderly are most afraid of being ‘scared’. Don’t be scared by the physical examination report or be fooled by advertisements.
Third, the most important thing for children is not to take their parents only to the hospital but to accompany them for walks, sunbathing, eating, and talking and bonding.
Aging is not the enemy It’s another word for living .. but stagnation is the enemy !
Stay healthy
Worth reading and understanding the process of health psychology.
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