I enjoy visiting a site on the internet called religioustolerance.org because it has a very deep library of information about world religions. I once had to learn a lot about Druze, a small Islamic group; in a hurry and religioustolerance.org was the best resource I could locate. It has helped me to get a clearer idea about my own beliefs as well as those of others. What brings me to mention it now is the article I found buried in a link to Nudism (check out the pictures of bare chicks they have posted!) that mentions a survey of older Americans interested in visiting a nudist resort. The older Americans were the 45- 54 year olds! I haven’t got the slightest qualm about getting your grand slam breakfast for a discount when you turn 55, I don’t even mind getting my AARP membership invitation at 50. But 45? Back when there was a nudist club in LA County the membership seemed to be split about evenly under and over 50. The president and founder was 75 when I met him and he was by no means the oldest guy there. I have also been to some places in the Caribbean where the spring break crowd were the norm, but that is a totally different milieu. My only current contact in the nudist world is a 60+ woman who reports that it is still a family recreational lifestyle. Kids and grandparents and the safest place in the world to be. “The core group is elderly.” She tells me. (Elderly usually means 10 years older than whoever is talking.) I’m not trying to encourage anyone to do anything they might feel bad about later but maybe this should be a topic at the Healthy Thursday series.

There have been a lot of news stories lately about medical studies concerning older adults. Some good news, like aerobic fitness in middle age delays the aging process by as much as twelve years. Some bad news, sleep problems can magnify other medical problems in old age like diabetes and heart disease. More than half of older adults report problems with sleep, either restless leg syndrome or sleep apnea, or a type of insomnia. Oddly enough, exercise helps improve sleep. Keep those walking poles handy!
There are some new meds in the chute for Alzheimer’s Dementia. Caregivers, with aging parents at home are often called upon to make medical decisions for their elderly charges, either by court ordered conservatorship, or power of attorney for health care invoked after a dementia diagnosis is made. One of the frequent choices asked for is using antipsychotic medication to reduce aggressive behavior in a dementia patient. There is risk associated with these meds, recently a heightened incidence of pneumonia was identified and it has been long established that the life expectancy is reduced in patients getting these medications for agitation. They do improve the life expectancy for patients getting the medication for other mental health problems. Keeping the person busy, usually with familiar tasks like table setting, is one potential non-medical coping strategy.
There are some other medicine stories worth highlighting. In addition to the caution on escalators I gave a few weeks back, getting in and out of cars is a high risk activity for falls as well. One surprise is they are using Ritalin for prevention of falls with older adults. You may be familiar with Ritalin as a drug used to treat attention deficit disorders in children, adolescents and adults. The improvement in focus from the medication may prevent falls.
Apparently the complex mental process of walking requires better attention than we imagined. I do OK as long as I’m not chewing gum at the same time.