Author Archives: Maureen
Thousands of elderly needlessly in hospital
Thousands of elderly people are being kept in hospital needlessly after the number of district nurses fell by almost one fifth.
By Tim Ross, Political Correspondent
8:00AM GMT 31 Dec 2012
Official NHS figures disclosed that the number of district nurses working in England declined from 7,813 in May 2010 to 6,424 in August this year.
This represented an 18 per cent cut in the service, which provides nurses to visit elderly and disabled adults in their own homes, since the Coalition was formed.
The fall coincided with a marked increase in the number of days that frail patients spent on hospital wards because of a shortage of adequate community health and care services.
Home uses TV classic This is Your Life to help dementia sufferers
Nancy McKeever with Anne Marson, a care worker at St Andrews Care Home, Uphall. Picture Ian Rutherford
By DAWN MORRISON
Published on Thursday 27 December 2012 12:00
Dementia sufferers at a Lothians care home are reliving their memories with the help of TV classic This is Your Life.
St Andrews Court Care Home in Uphall, West Lothian, has enlisted the help of friends, family and volunteers to create versions of the big Red Book, made famous by Eamonn Andrews and Michael Aspel.
The volumes are filled with photos, stories and other memorabilia which help take residents back in time.
Creating a physical record of important moments, feelings and experiences allows residents to enjoy their memories time and again, in spite of their illness, believes care home manager Helen McLeod.
Is your elderly neighbour on their own this Christmas?
Being alone has same effect on health as 15 cigarettes every day
At least you have got each other. But estimates suggest more than half a million elderly people will be on their own this Christmas.
Many will feel bereft and lost following the death of a long-term partner. Some will have children but may not live close enough for the family to visit with any regularity.
And the sad, solitary state of many older people is not just a state of mind. Experts have equated the effect of loneliness on health to that of obesity or smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
It can hasten dementia and increase the risk of heart disease and high blood pressure.
Half of all people aged 75 or over live alone and at least one in ten of the ten million over-65s in Britain is badly affected by solitude.
