Health in old age
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More and more drugs are taking older people, but it is uncertain if it guarantees the quality of life. Medicine is already time to rethink its attitude to old age. For this purpose we have received the reflections of two doctors from Osakidetza: Iñaki Peña Bandres, expert in duel, and Felipe Aizpurua Barandiaran, researcher.
The best recipe for older adults that is cancelled?
Felipe Esteban Aizpuru Barandiaran
Health Researcher at Osakidetza
A study conducted in 2016 in Gipuzkoa explained that several factors are related to the poor health of the elderly. Sensory problems - deafness, blindness -, the quality of sleep, poor social activity and, above all, the ingestion of many drugs were the most significant factors according to this study.
It is impossible to address from the health the complexity of social problems. As for sensory problems, we expect technological advances for the coming years. As for sleep, a review by the UCLA University of Los Angeles showed that sleep problems are common in the elderly, but that we do not study patients to detect them, although there are effective and safe procedures for their detection and treatment.
Regarding the use of drugs, according to the Basque Health Survey, 95% of those older than 75 take some medicine daily. The most commonly used are anti-blood pressure, cardiac or cholesterol. But medications also have side effects in the elderly. Sedatives, for example, influence ingenuity and balance. Analgesics, when they do not improve pain, are not altered or eliminated by the doctor. The combination of some medications produces adverse effects and is difficult to control. In addition, some medications have an excessive effect on the elderly, such as antidiabetics, or too weak as statins. In short, medicines are added, but it is rare to stop prescribing them, so all the above effects are becoming more and more possible. Finally, it must be said that the drugs are hardly tested in older people, but nevertheless we give them.
In summary, many times the best recipe is the one that is cancelled. The problems that concern the elderly have mainly social roots and to fight against problems related to health we have many effective tools. It is the responsibility of health professionals to learn and use it properly.
Clumsy at the passing of time and death
Iñaki Peña Bandres
Internal Physician at Osakidetza
In Western society we have a problem of first order with old age, not only in the health field, but also in the socio-family. On the one hand, we have the population pyramid totally distorted, since there are more and more older people. Likewise, there are few who recognize being part of this sector, that is, being old. In many cases the word Zaharra is also taken into account. And that is, in principle, a problem, in my opinion.
Thus, over the years, functional and cognitive diseases and problems usually accumulate, to which the increasing use of drugs is added. Fortunately, there are studies that give importance to physical exercise and provide strategies to maximize functionality, not pharmacological. In addition, the health sector also proposes the depression of drugs in some places, that is, the elimination or not of unnecessary drugs.
Unfortunately, in addition to this certain denial of old age, collective shields of immortality are underway. From the cryogenization of the 1960s to the current Silicon Valley. And it seems that lately an effort is being made to get drugs that will improve the quality of life of older people. We all would like to live more and with better quality. But with drugs? Will they have to take more drugs?
As a doctor, I really like taking pharmacological improvements, we will certainly have easier and easier dosages, the industry will increasingly design better drugs. This allows to improve the quality of life. But I am totally skeptical of magical solutions, I do not think that the human being reaches much more. And much less than we will see.
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