Lecture content on health knowledge for the elderly

There is no universal standard answer for elderly health. There are only three most critical principles - adapting to your own physical foundation, taking small and slow steps without being radical, and giving priority to avoiding various risks. This is 10 times more effective than blindly supplementing nutrition and following the trend of exercise.

I have been doing health education for the elderly in a community hospital for 6 years, and I have seen too many elderly people who follow the trend and cause problems. I met Aunt Zhang on the third floor a while ago. I heard from her old sister that Coenzyme Q10 can protect the heart. I used to take statins regularly to adjust blood lipids, so I secretly added three times the dose of Coenzyme. Within half a month, I checked my liver function and found that the transaminase was twice as high as the normal value. After I stopped, it slowly decreased. Nowadays, there are so many health remedies spread on the Internet and among neighbors. If you try them all one by one, your body will really be unable to bear them.

Take walking, which everyone discusses every day, for example. There was a lot of quarrel on the Internet before. Some people said that 10,000 steps a day is the secret to longevity, while others said that walking too much will ruin your knees. Both sides have clinical data. Doctors from the Department of Orthopedics in our hospital often say that if the T-score of bone density is lower than -2.5 and the elderly have degenerative knee joint disease, even taking 10,000 steps or 5,000 steps may cause joint effusion. However, colleagues in the Sports Rehabilitation Department also met a 72-year-old Uncle Wang who walked 12,000 steps around the park every day. He had no joint problems and his blood pressure and blood lipids were very stable after ten years of walking. To put it bluntly, there is no unified standard for this matter. As long as your knees don’t hurt when walking and you don’t feel tired after walking, don’t insist on comparing steps with others. If you are tired or fall, the gain will not be worth the loss.

Speaking of falling, I need to mention this one more thing. Last year, eight elderly people in our community suffered fractures due to standing up suddenly and falling. They all had to wake up in the middle of the night or wake up in the morning and jump up to sit up, inducing orthostatic hypotension and fainting. Don’t think that you shouldn’t take it seriously if your blood pressure is normal. Elderly people have poor blood vessel elasticity. If they suddenly change their position, their blood pressure can drop in a second. If they really fall and break their hip, I won’t tell you how painful the subsequent recovery will be.

I just finished talking about the pitfalls of going out, and there are also risks hidden in the small pill boxes that many people carry at home. A while ago, we treated an old man. He heard that panax notoginseng powder can open blood vessels. He felt that western medicine had serious side effects, so he secretly stopped his antihypertensive medicine. As a result, he was sent here with cerebral hemorrhage. After resuscitation, he couldn't move half of his body. What a pity. I have to tell you the truth here. There are indeed different opinions on the use of medicines. Many people who believe in traditional Chinese medicine think that mild Chinese patent medicines have no side effects. Doctors of Western medicine emphasize that all medicines must have indications and cannot be taken casually. Our advice has always been balanced: if you want to add Chinese medicine for conditioning, or want to reduce the amount of Western medicine, be sure to talk to your doctor in charge first, and don’t make random adjustments on your own, especially for antihypertensive, hypoglycemic, and anticoagulant medicines. A slight change in dosage may cause big problems.

Don’t be too pretentious when it comes to food. I once had an aunt who heard someone say that multigrain porridge can lower blood sugar, so she drank two large bowls at a time, but her blood sugar rose by two points. She came to me crying and asked if she was terminally ill. When I asked her, her porridge was boiled to a pulp, with more rice than cereals, and a higher glycemic index than white rice. Can her blood sugar not rise? There are many opinions on how to eat. The Department of Nutrition says to control the glycemic index and reduce salt and oil. The Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine says to take care of the spleen and stomach and not eat too much cold and hard food. If you have a bad stomach and your stomach hurts when you eat corn and sweet potatoes every day, then you don’t need to eat whole grains every time. Just add a small handful when steaming rice the next day. You don’t have to make yourself unable to eat for the sake of so-called health standards.

I haven’t given you any rules and regulations today, they are all real things that we encounter during daily consultations. Health in the elderly is really not that complicated. You don’t have to force yourself to compare with young people for energy. You don’t have to try every health regimen on yourself. If you feel uncomfortable, go to the hospital and ask. If you are unsure, don’t follow the trend. It’s better to be safe than anything else. If you have any questions after we leave, you can stay and ask me. You can also go to the community hospital to register for consultation, which is free.