Ageing
How can we support people living with the common challenges of ageing, from heart disease to arthritis?
How to help your parent prevent heart disease
Written by Rebecca Lenton Heart disease affects just under 500,000 people aged 75 and over in the UK. We’ve gathered together some tips to help your parent reduce the risk of heart disease as they get older – and they are relevant to the middle years as well. Debate continues as to which of these […]
Read moreBanishing the fear of falling with reflexology
Written by Amanda Weller This week’s storyteller is Amanda.Amanda Weller tells us how her reflexology knowledge has helped a friend, who’d become fearful of falling, to take back control of her feet and start living again. I have a lovely ninety-year-old friend who lives in Cornwall. She loves reflexology but I don’t get my hands […]
Read moreThoughts on living with an enlarged prostate
Written by Kathy Lawrence Is your dad peeing often and little? Maybe painfully? It might not be cancer, but it might be an enlarged prostate. Here are some thoughts from our own experiences on what you can expect to happen once you’ve persuaded them to see a doctor. At the beginning of 2013 comedian Bill […]
Read moreThe plight of Parkinson’s
Written by Rebecca Lenton In honour of Parkinson’s Awareness Week 2013 we have a special story from the grandchild of Britain’s leading 20th-century naval historian whose death marked the loss of a great man who gave his all as a naval officer, father, grandfather and historian. Parkinson’s made him pay the price for his amazing […]
Read moreIn, out, shake it all about
This week’s storyteller has chosen to be anonymous.AKA the endless saga of life with and without a catheter. An eurgh yuk ow sort of story. This is a story that began back in the days before I started paying attention. In those golden years when my parents could get in the car and drive themselves […]
Read moreWhen a heart attack leads to angioplasty
This week’s storyteller has chosen to be anonymous. An angioplasty unblocks arteries and puts a stent in place to keep the artery open. It can be a swift solution to a heart attack. But what exactly happens? Here’s one experience. I had a heart attack. The strange thing is that I wasn’t absolutely sure that […]
Read moreRespecting my parents’ wishes
This week’s storyteller is Clare Tanner. Clare was taken by surprise when her aunt told her that her mum was having heart surgery. She had no idea and she told us about her initial reactions in her story here. Now she explains the changes her and her mum have made in their relationship to foster […]
Read moreCaring for a mother-in-law with cancer
Adrienne Gruberg, founder of The Caregiver Space, shares how she adjusted family life to care for a mother-in-law with Lymphoma whilst her own husband battled lung cancer. My mother-in-law, Sylvia – all four-feet-ten inches of her – was a spitfire of a lady! At eighty-nine, she was one of the most resilient people I had […]
Read moreMum didn’t tell me about her major heart surgery
Written by Rebecca Lenton This week’s storyteller is Clare Tanner. When your aunt mentions that your mum’s having surgery and you had no idea – what do you do? Clare shares her experience of her parents’ preference for privacy and desire to not worry her by not telling her about it! Mum is 70 in […]
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