Independence

• Older persons should have access to adequate food, water, shelter, clothing, and health care through the provision of income, family and community support, and self-help. • Older persons should have the opportunity to work or to have access to other income-generating opportunities. • Older persons should be able to participate in determining when and at what pace aging work withdrawal from the labor force takes place. • Older persons should have access to appropriate educational and training programs. • Older persons should be able to live in environments that are safe and adaptable to personal preferences and changing capacities. • Older persons should be able to reside at home for as long as possible. • Older persons should remain integrated in society, participate actively in the formulation and implementation of policies that directly affect their well-being, and share their knowledge and skills with younger generations. • Older persons should be able to seek and develop opportunities for service to the community and to serve as volunteers in positions appropriate to their interests and capabilities. • Older persons should be able to form movements or associations of older persons.

Care

• Older persons should benefit from family and community based care and protection in accordance with each society’s system of cultural values. • Older persons should have access to health care to help them to maintain or regain the optimum level of physical, mental, and emotional well-being and to prevent or delay the onset of illness. • Older persons should have access to social and legal services to enhance their autonomy, protection, and care. • Older persons should be able to utilize appropriate levels of institutional care providing protection, rehabilitation, and social and mental stimulation in a humane and secure environment. • Older persons should be able to enjoy human rights and fundamental freedoms when residing in any shelter, care, or treatment facility, including full respect for their dignity, beliefs, needs, and privacy, and for the right to make decisions about their care and the quality of their lives.

Self-Fulfillment

• Older persons should be able to pursue opportunities for the full development of their potential. • Older persons should have access to the educational, cultural, spiritual, and recreational resources of society.

Dignity

• Older persons should be able to live in dignity and security and be free from exploitation and physical or mental abuse. • Older persons should be treated fairly regardless of age, gender, racial, or ethnic background, disability, or other status, and be valued independently of their economic contribution.

Mounting evidence points to fibromyalgia as a heritable disorder. This evidence includes familial aggregation of fibromyalgia as well as a reduced pain threshold in the first-degree female relatives of fibromyalgia patients, even in those without overt clinical symptoms. Gene polymorphisms in the serotonergic dopaminergic neurons systems and a higher prevalence of polymorphisms in the promoter region of the serotonin transporter gene (5HTT) in fibromyalgia patients as compared to healthy controls also have been identified. (more…)

Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) is the core daily personal care activities that are necessary in order for people to be able to live independently. Loss of mental functioning is measured by other standardized tests and referred to as cognitive impairment. Activities of Daily Livings are particularly important because along with cognitive impairment, and in some cases “medical necessity,” they are the mechanism used by the insurance industry to determine qualification for long-term care benefits and may also be used to determine qualification for admission to a nursing or assisted living home facility. (more…)

Obesity in the elderly is a major health crisis facing our population that may predispose the elderly to the same adverse health outcomes facing the younger, obese population. However, several studies have suggested that the risk of obesity on life span is less in the elderly and may even become insignificant. However, these studies have found an increase in disability in older subjects with obesity. (more…)

There are a number of issues that must be considered in geriatric pain assessment. The major issues that merit attention are presence of comorbidities, mental status, depression in late life, limitations in ADLs, medications, and the importance of family and other support systems (see Depression; Social Networks, Support, and Integration). (more…)

As people growing older or become elderly, several health risks and health complications and problem may happened because the natural degeneration of human systems and organ. When you are growing older and become member of elderly population, some complications associated with general body aches and pains may occur. (more…)

There is strong consensus among geriatricians and gerontologists that frailty is a clinical state of increased vulnerability and decreased ability to maintain homeostasis that is age-related problems and centrally characterized by declines in functional reserves across multiple physiologic systems. This vulnerability is age-related and also related to, but distinct from, disability and elderly disease states. (more…)

Because it expresses my own orientation, I carry in my wallet a membership card to the Society for the Right to Die, which has imprinted on the back a signed statement of my living will.

When the aging process accelerates inexorably, you usually don’t just fail to wake up one morning because of old age. One of the many illnesses that afflict the elderly with increasing frequency will likely be the cause of death and dying. Here is where I feel a living will is important. (more…)

Recent studies have shown that most anti-wrinkle creams do not produce more than 10% improvement in the appearance of a person. However, some compounds are more efficient compare to other common anti wrinkle products. We will highlight and look further at these specific products. (more…)

There are two basic considerations on how to prevent accidents and injuries in elderly. First of all, we should make our surroundings safe by removing or altering objects that are hazardous. And secondly, we should learn how to handle ourselves so as to reduce the likelihood of injury. (more…)