"It is important to observe preventive medicine. This is true for all age groups, and it is especially true for the elderly"/ShutterStock
Let's start with the question: which of the following two people will be healthier when they reach the age of 65: a person who did physical activity all his life but stopped it at the age of 50 or a person who until the age of 50 did not engage in physical activity but did engage in it ever since until they reached their current age?
"Some will think that the first type will be healthier since his body systems have been strong and normal for many years, but the answer is that the second type will reach the third age with a higher physical readiness, since the first person has a general degeneration due to the lack of physical activity for a very long time", According to the family doctor Prof. Amnon Lahad, a member of the task force that compiled the report "Promoting Health and Preventive Medicine", on behalf of the Association of Family Physicians in Israel. According to him, "In Israel there is a striking phenomenon of men and women who reach adulthood and say to themselves now I can afford everything .
As a result, they do not adhere to a proper diet and do not perform regular physical activity and thus expose themselves to diseases and medical complications."
So what is the solution?
"Adherence to preventive medicine.
This is true for all age groups, and it is especially true for the third age when our body systems begin to lose their effectiveness and the immune system weakens."
In the third age we are more exposed to diseases and infections and therefore the health system recommends having various screening tests/ShutterStock
When Prof. Lahad refers to preventive medicine (as distinct from curative medicine), he divides it into two main types: primary preventive medicine to prevent illness, which includes maintaining a healthy lifestyle (physical activity and quality nutrition) and receiving vaccinations, and secondary preventive medicine, which includes early detection of diseases or treatment in risk factors for the outbreak of diseases - such as treatment of hypertension, high blood sugar values, excess cholesterol, performing mammography tests for breast cancer, etc.
In terms of physical activity, he recommends that the guidelines apply to the entire population - performing 150 minutes of aerobic activity per week and performing strength exercises. "You don't need gym weights with 20 or 30 kilo weights, it's enough to do exercises at home with 2-3 kilo weights to prevent muscle atrophy," he says.
As for nutrition, would you advise older people to keep in shape A thin body?
"Here, too, we are not talking about different guidelines from the rest of the population, but about being more careful about consuming foods that are not processed or simple sugars.
Regarding weight, in the third age it is recommended that people be neither fat nor thin.
In fact, it is possible to have slight fullness because significant thinness is not healthy in old age."
Another recommendation he gives is to stop smoking, even among people who have been smoking for decades, and feel that it doesn't matter already when they reach the age of 65. "We expect from a person at the age of 65 more 17-18 years is a good life, so it makes sense to invest and stop smoking and thereby protect ourselves from serious diseases," he states.
And it turns out that there is another factor that is very characteristic of Israelis and is especially important in old age - our sleep: studies have found a direct link between sleep and morbidity and those who do not sleep It's enough, it's simply more sick when the desired number of hours is between 6-8 hours a night. According to Prof. Lahad, "Whoever says he can manage with fewer hours of sleep is lying to himself because the little sleep affects his abilities."
In the third age we are more exposed to diseases and infections, and therefore the health system recommends various screening tests starting at age 65. These include a fecal occult blood test once a year (for early detection of colon cancer) and a mammogram for women at risk of breast cancer. Both are recommended from the age of 50. Most tests are recommended up to Only 75 years old and according to Prof. Lahad there is no discrimination against the older people in the population.
"At the end of the day, these things create damage in the short term versus benefit at a later time. So if, for example, we performed a mammogram and subsequently removed a small tumor, then we exposed that 75-plus-year-old to the risk of complex surgery or radiation. For younger people, it is still worthwhile, but At the age of 75, it's worth a little less. You can say that there is an examination of benefit versus harm here."
Additional tests that are recommended at any age and also in the elderly are the detection of high cholesterol and hypertension and in recent years there is a recommendation to check the size of the abdominal aorta among smokers or former smokers as there are cases in which it expands and explodes and may cause the person to die.
Another new test is also related to smokers, and in more detail to people with at least 20 box years and in the age range between 50 and 80. For those it is recommended to perform a low-dose CT scan for the detection of lung cancer as studies show that timely treatment prolongs the animals in a short time.
The treatment of an adult is not limited only to physiological phenomena/ShutterStock
Another important test, according to Prof. Lahad, is a bone density test to detect osteoporosis (calcium leakage) - a disease in which the bones lose their density and tend to break more easily compared to healthy bones.
"In Israel, we perform this test mainly on women from the age of 60-65 [the test is available in the basket from the age of 60 and the recommendation in most of the world is to perform it from the age of 65 if there are no significant risk factors) and on men from the age of 70. "In general, in order to prevent falls and fractures in old age, we We recommend adapting the home environment accordingly, such as removing carpets or slippery surfaces," he clarifies.
As mentioned, primary preventive medicine also includes vaccinations, among the most important of which Prof. Lahad lists the recommended flu vaccine at the beginning of winter, the tetanus-diphtheria vaccine, and the pneumonia vaccine and a vaccine for the painful disease shingles. "Our immune system weakens over the years so that these and other
vaccines give us a layer of protection against various medical complications". about a relatively common problem in the elderly population, and it may accompany other medical conditions. Studies show that suicide rates in the population increase with age, and they reach the highest rate in men aged 75. "In light of this, it is recommended to perform a screening for depression in adults, including the elderly," Lahad testifies.
In conclusion, as a result of the increase in life expectancy in Israel and in the world, is there today a greater deepening of the medical establishment in the medical phenomena that characterize the elderly and in the study of the diseases of old age?
"Definitely yes. The field of geriatrics and gerontology (the study of old age) is developing very much in the world and especially in Israel, a country whose society is characterized as family (young and old meet together at close intervals, such as every Friday-Saturday) so that the difficulties and challenges of old age are familiar to all of us. In fact, this segment of the population is going And grew over the years and with it the understanding that the elderly citizens need both the existing medical treatments and examinations as well as a more individualized and new approach resulting from the social-technological changes that occur frequently in the current era."
In collaboration with the Patient Rights Association
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