ageing badly or growing older - the choice

[jacksfullofaces]

Everytime I pick up a newspaper I'm bombarded with aids for dsisabilities. Step in baths, wheel chairs, electric chairs, zimmer frames and so on.
What a depressing list! My uncle is 89 and recently collapsed by his bed because he was too drunk to make it
The real position is that more people are surving into old age because of medical advances.
Unfortunately though this is being seen as a culture of dependence and disability.
I think if people just watch television, eat unhealthily , smoke and drink then it will be a self fulfilling prophecy.
My uncle has cared for my disabled cousin for over 50 years - he has EDS but led a highly active life and always uses his mind including being chairman of the local conservatives and involved with the British Legion.
In glaring contrasts two of his sisters sat around ageing badly as they grew obese.
One died from pancreatic cancer and the other suffered a heart attack.
Surely older people should not be encouraged to believe that age related disability must be their lot.
In this modern world we can expect to live longer but unless we keep busy it could be a slow dreadful deterioration.
Jacks

[jacksfullofaces]

Pinky
You reminded me of something. In my twenties I had a friend who was eighty and every day he swam in the sea at Cornwall. He was a nudist and very healthy. Nobody would have guessed his age. I think his circulation got a work out through his swimming. My Gp recommended swimming to keep the pulse regular.
Jacks

[gobe]

My grandparents and great-grandparents all lived well into their 90's and I lived with my grandparents and father when I was a child so I have never really feared getting old because I was surrounded by active and capable older people from an early age.

I really think the right attitude helps. I accompany my 92 year old auntie on her weekly shopping trip and she does not seem old to me! She lives alone and the only help she has is a cleaner who comes every three weeks to to the hoovering and dusting. She does everything else herself. The only thing the family have to do for her is accompany her when she is out and about because she has gone blind in one eye so her balance is not so great. She needs an arm to hold on to. Mentally she is brilliant and has requested a Thesaurus for her Xmas present to help her solve her crossword puzzles when she is stuck and that is very infrequent.

[jacksfullofaces]

Gobe
Exactly you make my point. Look at the royal family - all very active and lively and they tend to like spartan pursuits. Prince Philip and his carriage driving. The Queen Mother fished the river Dee into her nineties. Yet today we have endless propaganda about care home life beckoning but nobody asks why this is happening.
I have a friend a year younger than myself and she sits in her chair all day. Admittedly she is in poor health but makes no effort to improve things and is heard to talk about being a pensioner.
She even told me to hurry up and get the house sorted out. According to her I didn't have much time and wouldn't want any chaos when I was sixty.
To say I was flabbergasted would be putting it mildly.
Jacks

[gobe]

Nov 30, 2012 14:52:13 GMT jacksfullofaces said:

She even told me to hurry up and get the house sorted out. According to her I didn't have much time and wouldn't want any chaos when I was sixty.
To say I was flabbergasted would be putting it mildly.
Jacks

Oh dear!

[jacksfullofaces]

This is a woman who in her early 40's claimed she looked only 28 and that her double chin was muscle and is now doing an OAP number. She even asked me why I bother with botox, filler and make up
Keeps her house almost completely dark at all times and in complete gloom with brown walls.
Jacks