Healthy Ageing

| July 1, 2009
Healthy Ageing topic of the month

If only we could all die young, but at a very old age.

In the midst of winter, when it is that little bit harder to go for a walk in the morning and that whole lot more tempting to spend the evenings snuggled on the couch watching a DVD with tea and tim-tams, July is the perfect month to promote Healthy Ageing as our featured ‘Topic of the Month’ here on Open Forum.

Healthy Ageing isn’t about feeling inadequate because you’re 50 and you don’t have pecs like Madonna. Healthy Ageing is about promoting ongoing physical and psychological wellness to live the best life possible. And remember, you’re never too young to begin.

Healthy Ageing concerns us all, whether as individuals, children of ageing parents, or parents of growing kids; indeed it’s a vital issue for Australia as a whole.

Healthy Ageing Topic of the MonthIf only we could all die young, but at a very old age.

In the midst of winter, when it is that little bit harder to go for a walk in the morning and that whole lot more tempting to spend the evenings snuggled on the couch watching a DVD with tea and tim-tams, July is the perfect month to promote Healthy Ageing as our featured forum Topic of the Month here at Open Forum.

Healthy Ageing isn’t about feeling inadequate because you’re 50 and you don’t have pecs like Madonna. Healthy Ageing is about promoting ongoing physical and psychological wellness to live the best life possible. And remember, you’re never too young to begin.

Healthy Ageing concerns us all, whether as individuals, children of ageing parents, or parents of growing kids; indeed it’s a vital issue for Australia as a whole.

"Australia’s population is ageing at a rapid rate and will continue to do so in the coming decades. The health, independence and well-being of older people are therefore becoming issues of increasing importance and priority for us as a nation and community. The potentially enormous costs of managing healthcare and the goal of delivering better quality of life and health for those enjoying a greater then ever life expectancy are issues to be addressed. 

The goal now is not just to live longer but to make these extra years as enjoyable as possible. With foresight and planning, ageing can emerge as an opportunity rather than a problem".

MBF Foundation, proud sponsor of July’s Topic of the Month on Open Forum

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Is there somebody you particularly want to hear from on this issue?  Let us know and we will do our best to get their editorial for you, email contributor suggestions to srose@openforum.com.au

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0 Comments

  1. foggy

    July 1, 2009 at 6:28 pm

    healthy ageing
    if the population is ageing at a rapid rate and continuing to do so, i am afraid some more statistics in percentage maybe required.like of the existing ageing people what is the percentage of healthy active people.also what is the percentage of those needing physical support and life sustaining /dependant drugs prescribed for life.this i think will help mobilise ready action directed to improve quality of life, and provide quality time to both groups-at a faster proper targeted pace.

  2. foggy

    July 4, 2009 at 1:26 pm

    healthy ageing

    When people see the ageing in good health and quite happy and active,they like to keep the picture as such.that is they do not want to spoil this picture by paranoid thinking or fearing how long before….?the truth is that as people age, they hide their fears and their slight physical discomforts and awkwardness.

    if you need more time for toilet and personal hygiene;if you fear you might swoon or feel weak when taking shower or other cleanliness rituals;then it is time to take your family into confidence, big and small.even the youngest child can pipe up a brilliant suggestion, so that your dignity and privacy is sustained, and the necessary vigilance is exercised proper.most children usually get separation anxiety when faced with the prospect of any harm befalling their beloved old grandparents.so it is time to get the catalogs, and everybody say what they like about getting physical aids and devices which you think will really help you.make this shopping a family affair,it will be an exciting outing.

  3. Bruce R

    July 13, 2009 at 3:39 am

    Need for policies which encourage “extended family” living

    During the 1980s, when I lived in Central Australia, I knew a wonderful man called John C. He lived ‘alone’ at Ti Tree north of Alice Springs but always had a flow of visitors up and down "the Track".

    John had been an axeman in the Otways in his early years, and later "dragged the chain" for surveyors in the Northern Territory after an accident with a silent but still running circular saw one dark night cost him the full use of his left arm.

    A very popular man, he served as a Grandfather figure for my children, as their grandparents were too far away for regular contact.

    John used to say he had a great ‘forgettory’ in lieu of memory. A great earbasher, I got to know his stories many times over. I observed that as he aged and when his memory got stuck while telling a story, he would get frustrated, blood pressure seemed to go up, and he would start swearing like the seaman’s cook he once had been. He became another person, "Jack".

    Bruce Chatwin, in his book "The Songlines" must have met "Jack" on an off day since the unpleasant character he based on John was nothing like rounded picture of the man I knew. Chatwin didn’t stay around long enough to meet John.

    There was a simple remedy when this Jack-John personality change looked like becoming started – if I could cue John back into the story, perhaps with a prompt as to what came next, he was away again, and a much happier person.

    And he was good company and a true delight to be around, as his sense of humour was outstanding. He was the first person to make my recently born daughter laugh, with a sort of Donald Duck sound. (Thanks for that gift, John. )

    When John went to Cuba in his later years (part of a life long ambition), and was asked by a Cuban official how the two countries compared, he replied that the quality of food in Cuba could not be as good as that in Australia as he had not seen anyone in Cuba looking through the rubbish bins trying to find some! A touch of the Kelly country Irish humour there.

    John’s lack of cognitive capacity could be made good by the cognitive ability of a younger person. This is a very human ‘service’. Adults, as a matter of course, make up for the lack of higher brain functioning of developing children, until such times as they can do such obvious things as plan ahead.

    It was sad to see John (for a last time, before he passed away), when I later returned to Alice Springs. He tied into an arm chair in the polished floor corridors of the Old Timers (he loved to wander) and unable to get a slice of bread to go with his evening meal – something he, who keenly felt the 1930s Depression – had eaten with his meals all his life. It is these little things which make the difference.

    The point I am working towards is the need for aging people, at the other end of life when we become increasingly dependent on others again, to have caring and familiar people around them in their everyday lives.

    As someone who is now in their early 60s I have gained first hand experience of how aging impacts on the previous generation, as parents enter into their 80s.

    I reckon, even as I look at those anthropologically strange age-based communities of retirement villages (for those with the resources to buy in) the modern age of the nuclear family has resulted in a greatly impoverished lifestyle for the previous generation.

    The more communal ways of life some of my generation explored in the 70s offer a much better alternative, in which the aging generation should be able to be part of a larger group involving all the younger generations. There was little real mainstream support for such social experiments, and – consequently – few around now, 30 to 40 years later.

    Multi-generational living arrangement would not only make for far more interesting company and a supportive family group (of some kind) but it would also enable the younger minds to make good for any loss of cognitive ability on the part of the group’s elders. This makes for real ‘independent’ living – but collectively, not individually.

    Like so many other aspects of modern living, I reckon we have overshot the mark when it comes to establishing nuclear family homes for all. Of course, this suits all those who profit from the subdivision of good farming land, house construction, sale of white goods and so on – while there is much under-utilised living space in well established houses with one or two aging people in them.

    I understand the extend of household debt presently being incurred by young couples seeking to buy their own ‘dream’ homes has now become a real problem for the economy, since they have already spend their future earnings.

    How come then, that more young people are not encouraged, by our governments, to opt for a more modest and down-to-earth way of living, by being part of extended families? Not good for business – in the short term, perhaps, but good for business over the longer term.

    It will probably take a big shift in how we see ourselves for us to shift to a better arrangement – and that may require more economic encouragement to take up co-living arrangements.

    As things stand, our self image is dominated by market-driven advertising which saturates our lives with infantile messages so that "We want it all, now!

    Some real leadership from the top in these matters – rather than misleading young people into heavy debt with greatly over-priced first homes – would be responsible government.

    But when did you ever hear a Minister of Health say anything about real health issues that did not offend the golden rule of staying in office "Say what you like, but nothing which may upset the markets."?

    What i am talking about here will not be the sort of thing the the drug companies pay good money to put into the ear of decision-makers and, for that matter, medical professionals.

    Despite this, would it be possible or those who develop polices on aging to look at the cost benefits for such alternative multigenerational living arrangements, and come up with some real incentives for those who are prepared to live in this more down-to-earth and sustainable ways.

    Now would be a good time to explore these social alternatives, as those of us who were tempted by communal living in the 60s and 70s are coming up next (as part of the large numbers of the baby-boomers).

    Bruce R

    http://www.songlines.org.au

    • foggy

      December 17, 2009 at 5:02 pm

      multigenerational living arrangements

      it seems like a unique sugestion.worth a try! much needed atmosphere for the older generation.much work needs to be encouraged and done as soon as possible.

  4. Bruce R

    July 16, 2009 at 10:10 am

    Aging, Well-Being and Australia’s First Peoples (Part One)

    In 1974, Professor John Cawte, in an exercise of transcultural psychiatry, published a book about indigenous Australian life called "Medicine is the law."

    Disregarding the serious flaws in the application of Western ideas about ‘normality’ to other cultures, Professor Cawte did identify an important relationship between the application of indigenous law and social healing.
    Given this, what is the role of mainstream Australian law – and lamakers – for the social healing required to restore full health and well-being to aging First Australians?
    EARLY DEATH OF SENIOR INDIGENOUS PEOPLES
    When I was living in Tennant Creek (NT) during the 1980s, but no longer working as a researcher for the Central Land Council on the ongoing Warumungu land claim, one of the claim lawyers and a woman anthropologist, puzzled, came to ask me why there were so few senior men for the local claimant group for the town area.
    I explained my understanding: The lives of senior Warumungu men had been well documented in 1901 by anthropologists Spencer and Gillen. But the arrival of Europeans totally changed all that. It was as though the arrival of the mining town in the 1930s had had the effect of a major disaster on their lives. Demographically, it was like a bomb going off. Most of the senior men had died young.
    The same pattern can be found across Australia. This is not a natural phenomenon of a ‘dying race’ being replaced by a superior people, but a direct consequence of the ‘unfortunate’ way in which this country was colonised.
    One of the sad realisations which result from working with senior indigenous people – who are nearly always, in my experience, wonderful people – is that they disappear out of life way too soon. You expect them to be around for many years to come – then suddenly they have gone, dead.
    The abstract figure about indigenous people dying up to 20 years earlier than non-indigenous people does not convey the great sense of loss which this entails for their families and friends.
    One year I actually became close to being ill from having to attend one funeral too many. I certainly did not want to attend another one. As a non-indigenous person I was able to achieve this, but many indigenous people cannot.
    Senior Warumungu women I knew well, who take ‘sorry business’ very seriously, have complained that there are so many deaths that they have no time to attend to the other areas of family life they have to manage.
    Being in a ‘sorry camp’ can last three weeks in just the initial stage of a process of ensuring life is returned to the proper eternal resting place.
    First Peoples take death of a group member very seriously. We wonder if we can get time off work to attend a funeral.
    EXPECTATIONS OF A FULL LIFE
    Against this pattern of indigenous Australians dying decades younger than non-indigenous people, there is an expectation with First Peoples that people will live a full life.
    I have heard men in their sixties being referred to as ‘young men’ by the more senior men who have been taken further into the esoteric side of indigenous law. It is quite refreshing in comparison to ideas of retirement in mainstream life.
    I believe this expectation of a long and full life is a traditional view for non-literate Ways of life in which the Elders are expected to carry wisdom accumulated over countless generations.
    I also consider that the absence of the full quota of this wisdom, due to the loss of senior men far too early, is one of the reasons there is increasing chaos in some indigenous communities.
    By contrast, on the non-indigenous side of life, Australians are living far longer – a good extra 10 to 20 years.
    It seems to me that we have taken the ‘cream’ of life away from First Peoples (along with the fat of the land) and ladled it out to others – including those retired people with good superannuation funding arrangements who ponder how to spend their surplus wealth this year.
    Many indigenous people don’t have to worry about super funds – they will not live long enough to need one.
    A LIVING FUTURE FOR ALL?
    There is something basically immoral (obscene even) with a Future Fund putting the country’s wealth away for those who live well into their 70s and 80s when the original people of this country are dying so much younger (and will, therefore, not benefit from the Future Fund)
    A good part of those same resources could be directed to ensuring that indigenous peoples’ well-being and lives are restored to the same level as non-indigenous peoples, even if that means less resources for the latter until such times as both peoples draw level.
    In regard to aging in Australia, how about a living future for all as a major objective?
    Bruce R

  5. Bruce R

    July 17, 2009 at 4:55 am

    Aging, Well-Being and Australia’s First Peoples – (Part Two)

    In the very near future we should see the establishment of a national indigenous representative body of some kind.

    This body, last time I checked, was not aiming at the delivery of services (such as health) but to provide a means for information flow and for decision-making.
    As that national indigenous body beds down, there is a backlog of issues requiring national consultation, including those matters which relate to the restoring a full life to senior indigenous people.
     
    I am not sure how much funding the government has presently directed to restoring health and well-being to First Peoples – but my experience has been that governments always try to do it on the cheap and vastly underestimate the real cost of making good what was seriously damaged by ‘settlement’.
    As First Peoples say, Australian life was settled right up to 1787- it only became unsettled in 1788.
     
    But even if, simply for the sake of argument, there now is sufficient government funding for the medical health needs of First Peoples, this in itself would not restore full well-being and ensure the return of a full quota of life.

    One of the problems for First Peoples is when they are treated as being, somehow, unreal. By and large, and over a long time, their lives are always being negated by mainstream Australia. (I know there are a lot of exceptions and that this is increasing. – which is great!)

     
    This ‘unrealisation’ process exposes First Peoples to all manner of killing stress (invisible to non-indigenous eyes). But, in the West, we only regard stress as something which requires money spent on when it affects those ‘at the top’. Killing-stress, in relation to First Peoples, does not get a look in – but it is very real, and lethal.
     
    Being rendered ‘unreal’ exposes First Peoples to all manner of attacks of a kind which you would need a deep understanding of cross-cultural psychiatry to be able to put into simple words.
     
    No need for taking another higher degree, nor is there time for that. I call it a two-centuries long affirmation drought.
     
    Restoring full lives to First Peoples so that they may enjoy longer lives is not simply a matter of better health services. We – collectively – have to sing them back to full well-being.
     
    HOW? INDIGENOUS SOCIAL JUSTICE PACKAGE?
    During the Native Title debate which followed the High Court’s recognition of native title, there was much made about the need for certainty for Anglo-Australian business.
     
    Concessions were made by some First Peoples representatives to ensure that this business certainty would be provided. They were led to believe, by the Keating government, that there would be a comprehensive indigenous social justice package in return.
     
    These indigenous social justice matters were researched and reports and recommendations published before the 1996 election,. They contained many positive measures which would had gone some distance to restoring certainty into the lives of First Peoples. It was not prepared by revolutionary radicals.
    Paul Keating lost, John Howard won … and the indigenous social justice package sank like a stone without trace. With the Howard government Native Title Amendment Act to make damn sure business certainty was restored, the wider Australian people reneged once again on undertakings made to First Peoples by the government of the day. There is a real debt of honour here remaining to be made good.
     
    My view is that (in addtion to the need for a treaty – or treaties – and constituional recognition of First Peoples) it is time to revisit the indigenous social justice package and, in a spirit of cultural partnership with First Peoples, engage with them to bring it up to date in keeping with the changes which have taken place over recent years. Then put the resulting package into the law of the Australian Parliament.
     
    Ideally this would be done with bi-partisan support from the Opposition, and entrenching the legislation in some way so that it cannot be overturned by a simple majority at a future date.
     
    When the new national indigenous representation body is up and running, there will be a new means for reviewing and updating the indigenous social package – which should then be speedily delivered to make good the debt of honour incurred by ensuring certainty for Australian business in the 1990s.
     
    We need to ensure that First Peoples have the certainty they need to live well into their older years, with a full life to boot.
     
    Bruce R

  6. harrietr

    August 11, 2009 at 2:12 am

    Health ageing research – because ageing is not all doom & gloom

    Ageing is not about waiting to die and making your last pit stop in a nursing home.

    On the contrary, ageing can be a positive and productive experience and it is the mission of the Healthy Ageing Research Unit (HARU) at Monash University to spread the word.

    HARU, directed by Professor Colette Browning and housed within the School of Primary Health Care at Monash University, was established in September 2006. HARU’s mission is to conduct research of the highest international standards that is designed to improve quality of life for older people while recognising the dynamic and diverse nature of the ageing population in the community.

    HARU is home to several major research programs including the Melbourne Longitudinal Studies on Healthy Ageing (MELSHA) program which is jointly run by Monash and the University of Sydney. This year MELSHA will gather information about participants’ mental agility and examine how it influences healthy ageing. The Cultural Conceptualisations of Ageing Program (CCAP) is our second major program and is investigating the conceptualisations of healthy and successful ageing across different cultures, and how these conceptualisations impact health behaviours and use of health services. CCAP currently has data collections in Australia, Malaysia and China.

    Other ongoing projects at HARU include evidence-based care of people with dementia led by the Australasian Cochrane Centre, healthy ageing in older veterans, challenges of accessing food by older people, inter-agency partnerships in the multicultural community sector, and the use of research-based theatre as a health promotion strategy.

    The team at HARU works with a range of organisations including Local and State Governments, peak body and community based organisations. Working in partnership in this way increases the relevance of our research and the potential to directly influence policy and practice to actually make a difference to the lives of older people.

    HARU also runs ongoing seminar programs and in 2010 will be contributing to the Masters in Health Sciences program. And finally, in 23 October of this year, HARU is delighted to be hosting the 8th National Emerging Researchers in Ageing Conference, which is the first time it has come to Melbourne. For more information, or to register, go to http://www.med.monash.edu.au/sphc/haru/conference09/index.html

    For more information please go to our website (http://www.med.monash.edu.au/sphc/haru/index.html or contact Harriet Radermacher (03 9501 2435 or harriet.radermacher@med.monash.edu.au).

    • bituufg

      August 11, 2009 at 7:14 am

      Healthy Ageing

      A kid could really hurt himself by lifting weights before his skeleton has developed…15 or 16 is OK but not heavy weights…before that natural body exercise will make him strong with out injuring him…ie…pushups, chin-ups, dips, crunches…otherwise he will pay for it later in life…trust me on this

      http://1984-riots.blogspot.com
       

  7. mungala

    November 19, 2009 at 1:38 am

    matter of the mind

    Think you are really only as old as you feel, some people seem to age quite quickly when they have a mature mindset. If you are young at heart and active due to that fact you tend to stay young maybe not always in physical apperance but in ability to enjoy life and live it to it’s full potential. I have attached a clip of some elderly people enjoying some sun and stretching and their reaction to a young gentleman joining in on the action, they were happy and everyone had an enjoyable time. I love the laughter that is had by everyone involved, sometimes people stress about getting old and that in turn makes them age. enjoy the moments you have and make the most of the opportunities given http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bwz3XcWp5E8 speaks for itself.

  8. Alina_D

    October 15, 2011 at 10:23 am

    Hmm.

    Everyone knows this but we choose to believe in some miracle potion to prevent it instead. Ageing is all in the mind. In a way it can be seen as your body’s revenge for how one has once treated it but whilst saying that aging is all about your mental state. The mind is the most powerful tool we have aquired as humans. The ability to have willpower and a choice rather than follow our instincts is what has led us to be where we are now. It has not been too long ago when science had discovered the power of the frontal lobe and have conducted many researches trying to uncover it’s secrets. As technology develops ever so rapidly, we can now see how much of a gift this organ really is . 

    For example we always hear stories that once a person really focuses on a particular goal and achieves it, it is considered a miracle..Well is it really? What is so miraculous about something each and every one of us possesses? Whether we choose to use it as a tool to change our life, health, view on everyday situations, etc.

    This is why I hear many people at the age of 40 complain about not being young and feeling sorry for themselves, because they are too old…all of it is just (excuse my language) pure crap. Look at the 80 year old great grandmas achieving black belts in Karate or the 100 year old man running marathons. And no these people were not athletes in their youth, they just have a strong mind which has been set on a particular goal. Why do they start learning new things at such an age?  Well simply because they can. 

    Why hasn’t anyone considered using a simple method of changing your attitude and practically rewiring your mind rather than swallowing countless amount of medication which does not only cover up the cause but is also extremely expensive.

    Healthy aging should promote keeping the mind active. I have watched countless amount of extremely intelligent individuals retire and rapidly age within a year, especially if their mind has not been put to any use.

    Or we can just keep doing what we are doing now and face a couple of other facts related to this issue.

    We are not only an aging population but one that ignores to force discipline in our youth, letting them behave in ways many of us would have been smacked for. But now with all these laws against violence, we have stopped parents disciplining our children altogether. Taking away the "bad" way and not giving them a way at all.

    So who exactly is going to be supporting this "aging population", if they can’t get jobs for themselves? Why get a job when you can go on the dole and live a comfotable life.

    This is one of the only countries in the world that pays people to do….Absolutely Nothing! And i don’t mean people who are unable to work because of a disability. I mean literally people get paid for doing nothing. 

    Why because us Australians support each other? Yeah that’s why we pay for immigrants to come here and feed them and have them burn down things we have provided for them but our pensioners..? They get peanuts! These people who have worked throughout their life, and worked damn hard. They get nothing. They are forced to go back to work but no these people sitting on their butts smoking illegal substances are praised. 

    Besides that prices are going up and personally I doubt many pensioners will be able to afford to "watch a DVD with a cup of tea and a packet of tim tams".

    The more you earn, the more you get taxed. The more you save, the more you get taxed.

    On the other hand. If you earn nothing, you don’t pay as much tax and get free money. Yep you heard me..If you’re a bludger and just don’t feel like working because you are 30 with 10 kids, getting paid for every single one of them (yet the kids look like they would jump off the bridge if they were fed and had the strength to), you get ….Money.

    Where else in the world do poor people have LCD TVs?

    And by the time I retire I doubt the country will be able to afford to pay me a pension at all.

    Should I start saving and get taxed? Put more super away and risk losing the money I worked hard for? Or not work at all and not bother with the other two options.

    Hmm.

    Ageing population, Increase in Taxes, Doing nothing pays well, Youth who stays home untill they are 40 yrs old is expected to support us…

    Well.

    Goodluck.

     

     

     

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