Setting a roadmap to care for the senior citizens

Nagpur: Geriatric population has always been an ignored group and geriatric medicine a very miniscule part of medical studies in the country. Projections say the number of senior citizens in India would form at least a third of the country's population. Considering this, the medical and social facilities extended to the elderly must be improved, too, experts believe.

Specialists in geriatric medicines from all over the country gathered in the city this weekend to discuss the roadmap that the country needs to follow for healthcare facilities given to the elderly. The 11th annual national conference of Geriatric Society of India (GSI) was conducted in the city this weekend, with the help of Influenza Foundation of India (IFI), Indira Gandhi National Open University ( IGNOU) and Indian Menopause Society (IMS).

"Today, India is home to 95 million senior citizens who make up for 20% of the population. The country is projected to have 171 million elderly people by 2015 and 345 million by 2050. We need to gear up as a society, to be able to give a comfortable life to all these citizens. However, what we see today is that the society concentrating on children and young earning members of the family, sometimes even at the expense of the health of the senior citizens," said Dr Bhau Rajurkar, organizing chairman of the conference. He said that the society is trying to stress the importance of geriatrics as a separate subject in medical curriculum so as to have the necessary number of specialists in the subject.

Home Cleaning Experts Offer Tips on Holiday Cleaning

Home cleaning industry experts discuss time-saving tips for holiday season cleaning

November 3, 2014 —

With the holiday season right around the corner, several cleaning service experts came together to offer some valuable cleaning tips to homeowners this holiday season, which will help minimize the time and effort spent on cleaning and maximize the time spent with family and loved ones.

“The first thing that people complain about during and after the holidays is overeating,” says Katherine Cook, general manager of The Maids New Hampshire. “What we see sometimes when we come to houses with regular cleaning visits is that people do not properly clean their fridges, which in turn results in unnecessary spending at the grocery store.”

According to Cook, about 33 percent of people do not clean their fridge prior to going to the grocery store, which not only may cause overeating and poor meal planning, but also the spread of bacteria, viruses, and parasites inside the fridge, which may cause severe food poisoning. Therefore, Cook suggests that fridge cleaning should be one of the top cleaning chores this and every holiday season.

Another popular cleaning question that people tend to have around the holiday season concerns keeping their floors clean: both before and after the holidays.

“The holiday season is one of the most sociable times of the year,” says Joey Strong, owner of a Durham region carpet cleaning and janitorial services company, “Naturally, your flooring will see more stress that usual, and carpets tend to be the most affected.”

According to Strong, there is no universal tip for carpet cleaning. Each type of stain requires different treatment. However, to achieve the best results, each treatment should be done in a timely fashion.

Other types of flooring will also require attention. Cook suggested two easy, yet effective, solutions for wood and laminate floor cleaning.

“Soak a cloth in tea and just wash down wood floors. Tea will add an extra shine to the wood, eliminate odor, and kill some germs that might dwell in the wood,” suggested Cook. “For laminate flooring, add two table spoons of baby shampoo to a gallon of water and mop the dirty area.”

Another time-saving idea that seems to be a no-brainer, yet is often overlooked according to Cook, is cleaning as you go. Putting dirty dishes right into the dishwasher, wiping stains off right away, and putting away things that are no longer in use will save a lot of time for cooking, decorating, and other fun holiday activities.

“Holidays can be stressful because of all the cleaning that needs to be done,” said Strong “Oftentimes, it is worth hiring professionals for your cleaning needs rather than spending hours on trying to tackle every single cleaning task yourself.”

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Mapping software to track Edinburgh’s elderly

MAPPING software is to be used to track older people across ­Edinburgh in a bid to improve the location of services for the ­elderly.

The move is the first key ­recommendation of a Europe-wide health study.

Italian city Udine has used Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software to show where older people live and how they move about the city. The information was then used to help decide on the location of services such as pharmacies and ­clinics.

Edinburgh is the only Scottish city to have been included in the pioneering Urbact Healthy Ageing project. The scheme’s leading city is Udine, while the others are Brighton and Hove, south of the Border, Grand Poitiers in France, and Klaipeda in ­Lithuania.

The project aims to “transfer learning” between European cities about their approaches to tackling issues such as demographic ageing and meeting the needs of older residents.

GIS has been used in the past by Edinburgh Council to help with planning, parks and ­transport.

European funding for the project will pay for an IT worker to develop an online mapping tool with key data relating to older people’s services and activities in the city.

Projects in partner cities have highlighted walking groups, urban gardens, poetic therapy and story-telling and ­activities to improve or maintain memory skills.

City health and wellbeing leader Councillor Ricky Henderson, said: “The Urbact Healthy Ageing project is a fantastic ­opportunity to learn about successful ways in which the lives of older people can be improved, and gives us the chance to share our good practice too.

“Promoting healthy and ­active ageing is an essential part of improving lives for older people. If we improve health and wellbeing, then it’s likely that the need for older people to ­access higher levels of care will be delayed.”

Scottish Green health spokeswoman Alison Johnstone agreed.

She said: “Using technology in this way is a great use of resources in an effort to increase the health and wellbeing of our elderly population. Such mapping will greatly help in locating the right services in the right areas. In the years ahead with an ageing population and stretched finances it is only right to the user that services are located in the right places and that they are as accessible as possible.”

Figures show that Scotland’s population is ageing, and by 2035 over-65s will account for more than 30 per cent of people.

Health experts have warned the NHS will struggle to cope with rising numbers of elderly patients with complex needs in the years ahead against a backdrop of reduced resources and dropping bed numbers.

3.5 million elderly people 'at risk from winter cold'

Around 3.5 million elderly people are worried they will not be able to keep warm this coming winter, a charity has warned.

Age UK pointed to the 25,000 elderly people who die every year from the cold, which they amounts to 206 deaths a day or one death every seven minutes.

Known as "excess winter deaths" many of these could have been prevented if pensioners were in properly insulated homes, according to Age UK.

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Cambodia’s Elderly Face Increasing Hardships

PHNOM PENH—

Like many developing countries, Cambodia’s mainly agricultural society is changing fast, driven by urbanization and falling fertility rates. As young workers move to the cities, older people are staying back in the villages, where they have little support.

After Sok Soeun’s husband died 12 years ago, she left her village for the Saravan pagoda in Phnom Penh.

Twenty elderly people - most of them women - live here assisting the monks with Buddhist ceremonies.

In return, attendees donate cash that the women spend on food and medicine.

Although former civil servants and soldiers get a pension, more than 80 percent of Cambodia’s 850,000 elderly did not have formal employment and so do not qualify.

Like 73-year-old Soeun, many are widows and struggle to get by.

“My kids come here every two or three months and give me between 10 and 25 dollars," she said. "It depends - they are poor. But what can I do? It’s my fate. I’ve been at this pagoda for 12 or 13 years. Recently I started getting more ill, and so now I can’t join the religious events.”

Experts want the government to provide geriatric healthcare and a universal pension.

Annie Nut, an adviser to the non-profit organization HelpAge Cambodia, says such help is critical because of the increased responsibilities carried by many grandparents.

“Because of course when you migrate to the city or to another country it is very difficult - especially as a low-qualified laborer or worker - to bring your own children because their services are very expensive and renting a house is out of the question. So the grandparents have to take care of the grandchildren at home, and they also have to be the guardian of the households and the crops,” said Nut.

HelpAge has, with government support, set up 400 village-level groups to foster volunteer care of the elderly at the community level.

The opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party has proposed a $10 monthly pension and free healthcare for the elderly.

Opposition legislator and former minister of women’s affairs, Mu Sochua, speaks of a moral obligation to help.

“As I say, our culture elevates the elderly. We look up to the elderly - and for what they have gone through with Pol Pot and they have survived, the least the [future] government of the Cambodia National Rescue Party, the least thing we can do is provide them with that minimum package starting with $10 a month,” said Mu Sochua.

The clock is ticking: a baby boom at the end of the Khmer Rouge’s rule and a declining fertility rate mean that by 2050 the country will have more than 4 million senior citizens - a fivefold increase.