Health issues
Meeting the physical challenges of later years
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 […]
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How to help your parents manage tinnitus
Emily Broomhead, Projects Manager for the British Tinnitus Association, shares practical tips for managing your parent’s tinnitus and delves into the different devices you can buy to help. Approximately 10% of adults in the UK have tinnitus. People of any age can have tinnitus but it often affects the elderly as their hearing may worsen […]
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How to safely lift your parent
Written by Rebecca Lenton One of our lovely readers, Jane, asked us the following question: “How can I and my husband safely, and confidently, lift his 89 year old mum upright out of her chair, onto her zimmer frame, and then back into her commode seat, without damaging our backs or her?” We don’t pretend […]
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Living with blindness
Written by Rebecca Lenton Blindness affects almost 2 million people in the UK and as our parents get older there’s an increasing chance that they may experience some degree of sight loss. 1 in 5 people aged 75 and over are living with sight loss and for those with a service record accepting their blindness […]
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How speech therapy can improve communication
As our parents age they can face challenges that make speech more difficult. Speech and language therapist Laura Dawson explains how to identify the issues and how our parents can be helped. Why is communication important? Communication is vital. We communicate our decisions, needs and opinions verbally. It’s the basis of forming relationships. When anyone […]
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Banishing 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 […]
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Thoughts 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 […]
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The 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 […]
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In, 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 […]
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When 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 […]
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