Embracing Autumn: A Senior's Guide to Health and Activity

Hello again everyone. We're looking here at the seasons and now looking at autumn, how we manage, how I manage really my health. But as I said, I don't pick out anything specific, but you have to adjust because the evenings are closing in. As I say the gardening is now you're harvesting and having to do more things in that respect than planting out so the definitely adjustments are going to be perhaps a little minor not so much the food is going to change it's how you manage perhaps your lifestyle and how I manage my lifestyle and doing things differently. The evenings I find for me getting a bit shorter so yes my sleep is improving but I've still got to pack like 24-7 into the day but we'll see how we get along. And are there any other challenges that you face in the autumn and how do you manage this? Well although I'm still keeping up the walking because as many of you know it's the new term at schools so everybody's bright and breezy and I'm still doing that 25 miles a week week plus. But one of the things that a friend and I also do, she's 84 now, is at the weekends on a Saturday morning we go to the park and we do Tai Chi in the park. The instructor actually is older than us, I think he's nearly into his 90s. He's out 7 days a week in the park and she goes more often than myself but I can manage a Saturday morning. And we We do an hour's Tai Chi in the park, totally free, and then we go shopping. So that's also another interesting activity that we can get up to. And also she does line dancing, so my evenings, because it's finally things to do that are gradually going to be more indoors, so we go line dancing as well on the Mondays. And that is great fun and a lovely community there, lots and lots of people. it's getting more men now than women, which is quite fun. Sorry, can I just take that? Oh, sorry. Yeah, sorry. I'll give it to you at the last minute. No problem. Are there any particular things that you think the health care professionals that you come into contact with could do to help you better prepare for the autumn months? I would say it's a bit difficult at the moment since Covid seeing healthcare professionals. I know it's probably now nearly three years on but I don't know, my age group are finding that we're getting, we're having real difficulty getting to see our GP. To be honest I haven't seen my GP since 2019 properly but when I do and the surgery is opening up more but when I do get into the surgery I mainly see the nurse checking my blood pressure and that. Other healthcare professionals, for myself, I don't really see them unless something happens and I access the walk-in clinic. I try not to go do anything dangerous that will get me in hospital. I must admit my age group, I have a real fear of hospitals at the moment, to be honest. We almost see them as the way to the cemetery, so we're trying to stay out of hospitals, which perhaps it's not a bad thing because it means it keeps you fitter, you try and look after your health a bit more, you know you then don't have all the difficulties of if you're lying in bed and you don't have your stockings on that you could have a thrombosis or a clot which is obviously what happened to my mum and my auntie who had diabetes. So things like that kind of prey on your mind because we've lived long enough we know that is the one place we don't want to be. But other health care professionals, no. I can only speak for myself. Though we do have difficulty with pediat... what they call podiatrists getting our feet checked. I'm lucky, I can bend, I have great flexibility and this is why I would encourage anybody my age range, you've got to keep as fit and supple as you can. But I do work, as I said, I run a support group and I have people with mobility issues and it is really really difficult to get their feet treated and as you know if you've got diabetes that is absolutely like crucial that you have your feet treated because we don't want any amputations or anything like that. So trying to find a chiropodist or podiatrist, somebody who can help you to have treatment, get your nails cut even, that is a real issue and some of us are trying to train up to do foot care or at least we talk about it. That is the one time that perhaps I drill into my support group that we really have to look after our feet because I don't want them to have to have amputations, that is not good at all. And eye checks, definitely. Every, let me think, in my support group at least once a term, my brain thinks terms because of my granddaughter, I make sure that they all have a sheet and they have to tick it off that they've been to see their health care professional to get their health checks and there are at least 10 health checks they should have. So have their eyesight done, if at all get their kidneys sorted, make sure they've seen their dentist, make sure they've had all their blood checks. That is the one time that perhaps we do the most overt or I do the most over speaking about health with my support group to make sure they're all healthy and I keep healthy as well. I think the health care professionals need to come out more into the community. I'm going to use the word, it's almost like they're in an ivory tower. I know there are lots of shortages in the health service. We used to have the little cottage hospitals, but really if our age group, and I would say anybody over 60s and senior with diabetes, which is totally preventional, if we could get the healthcare professionals to come out, and this is something that's happening up in Harrow, we're inviting healthcare professionals to come in and talk to our groups. So my church, we've set up a group, we are running our diabetes support group there, we have invited healthcare professionals to talk about diabetes and researchers and up in Parklife cafe we've had speakers in and it's really great for them to understand the language we're speaking whether we speak English but also reduce the medical terminology because if it's about us we need to understand what are you talking about what are we talking about and how can we help each other and the biggest thing one of the biggest problems is just all the acronyms, you know, when the health care professionals get together they go da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da and I said please put it on the sheet of A4. What does that mean? Because we're wasting time talking about acronyms when you want to share information with us and that seemed quite controversial at the time that nobody thought, you know, give everybody a sheet of paper so we can all speak the same language and keep it simple and clear. And are you making any particular preparations during autumn for the coming winter months, particularly with regards to your diabetes, your overall health? Probably, let me think, if I talk about, perhaps just beef and touch and nutrition a bit, coming into winter we tend to have, I would say, heavier meals, this is what and one of the things we love in our family is soup but I don't mean hind soup unless you've had a good Caribbean soup you really don't know what you mean but I'll explain issue if I take say lamb lamb neck mention some of the ingredients and you'll probably throw your hands up in horror if you're diabetes we're talking sweet potato we're talking planting we're talking yams we're talking dumplings cinnamon dumplings we're talking split peas and that's just for starters, anything else you can lay on. Now that is what basically goes down a treat within our family, pretty much on a Saturday or maybe a Friday night, because you really, sometimes you cook a big pot, it tastes better when it's had time to settle down, so the next day actually is a nicer tasting and we're talking a seriously big pot of soup, so that I know you probably feeling the calories coming on already and you're thinking my my diet would never take it yes it will you because as I said you're intermittent fasting you want doing portion control and you will find that you can eat anything under the Sun so all those foods you're sort of thinking no I can't touch it I've had a couple of Snickers already today you're probably throwing your hand up in horror but it's a case of you cuts it smaller so one Snicker bar can last you two days, you just have a portion today or even three, a portion tomorrow, portion the day afterwards. So work on those things, keep up the exercise. That's basically how we manage in the family and I try and encourage that within my group. And any other tips to motivate others with diabetes to be more able to self-care for their needs during this time? Well just to say first of all, you are the experts. It's not the health professionals who are the expert, you are the experts of your life. You know how you feel when you wake up in the morning. Do you feel more aches, less aches? I must admit when I wake up I'm thinking have I had a really good night's sleep because my back may be hurting. So I may have to change the mattress or I just sit on the bed and try and stretch. Are you doing some stretching exercise before you get out of bed? Just don't leap out and run as if you're going up city for a business. you're not doing that kind of thing. When I'm creaming my body, I try and stand on one leg. It's not a biggie, but if you think people are paying hundreds of pounds to go to a gym to stand on one leg, you do all these exercises yourself when you're creaming your body or moisturising. In the Caribbean, we tend to call it creaming or greasing, if I may use that phraseology, if there are any Caribbean people listening, but in England they talk about moisturising, daily moisturizing, you have to self-care your body 24-7. Try and turn it into probably, you know, into an exercise. You don't realize you're doing it. A lot of people get stiff joints, knees, hips and all it is. Try and bend from the waist. You don't have to, you know, try and think, oh I can't bend. If you have to reach your toes a little bit every day, I guarantee you by the end of the year, you will probably have reached your ankle even if you think, oh I can't get further than my knee. Oh, that just reminded me as well, part of my peer support group, we do an hour's chair based exercises and the people who say oh I can't get up the stairs with mobility issues, we've been doing this chair based exercises now for let me think about six months and I've got a friend in the group, I'm gonna call him Mr. T, I won't care to tell you his name. He's had arthritis in his fingers. Another lady, she's waiting for a medical appointment. He had to wait 15 months just to see, to talk to somebody for physiotherapy. We're doing the chase base exercises, just tipping each finger like that and he's managing that. He's managing to lift his shoulders. All chair base. We watch a lovely video with somebody our kind of age who's doing it and it relates more to us. Lovely to have a 20-year-old in a gym doing all these wonderful things but more relatable somebody of our age keeping up the exercises. You can find all these things on YouTube you know just get your finger working just doing that is exercising just to start with you know so it's not a no-no you don't have to be with a grandchild, well my grandchild at the moment makes me run around knowing And as I said, I ride a scooter. But I still have to play rounders with her. We play hide and seek. We do Simon Says. Whatever she does, I have to do. And that's all exercise. Just make it fun and enjoy it. Thank you, Heather. That's lovely. And thinking of this autumn season, how do you feel an online community would help? I think it would be great because we could all sort of speak with each other, share activities, but can I also say for my age group, that's why we run digital sessions, is understanding the technology. You first, yes it's great to be on the online community, but you've got to put in a lot of work learning digital skills, so I would say you're not too old to learn. got people as I say well my friend is 83 but we have got people who are pushing 90 and upwards and they're an absolute whiz on the iPhone and the Android but we've had to put all of that in first because the NHS after Covid everything went online but we're part of the nine million community so if you're a senior like myself you're a part of the forgotten community and you can't keep up about pulling your children out of school or having your grandchildren come home from school to tell you everything. Sorry, asking your children, pulling your children out of school in my age group, asking my daughter to, can you show me how to do this on my phone, how to do that on my phone. You know, they're getting on with their work. So I've got to train myself and I thought we've expanded it out. So we first have to learn some skills and skills ourselves up in IT or digital skills and then we can access the community more and put in information for ourselves. Because I would say I did not grow up with technology of that kind. A computer at that stage took up a whole room, to be honest. Now you're walking around with a phone that is like a computer with lots of information but we're not using enough of it and we have to learn how to use it. My daughter now tells me I'm like a teenager, a rejuvenated teenager. She always moans at me, I'm in the backseat on my phone and she's saying, but I want to talk to you now, Mum. I'm saying, well, I've got to keep up these skills and that's the only way. Everything's now online for me. I've got to find out how to use the phone. So she's beginning to understand that a lot more. last words about how to manage in the autumn months? I would say yes it's coming up but don't change your basic routine. For me I have a sense of purpose so I have a routine probably because I'm with my grandchildren. I don't know if you're at home alone but there's a difference between being alone and being lonely and people can't seem to understand that. You should enjoy being alone. To be honest I would love sometimes to be alone because I'm surrounded by five others in the house but that in itself is great. There's so much you can go and do and you don't have to ask anybody anything. Being lonely is something but you should never be lonely, not in a country like Britain. There's so many things to do and you're probably not even pushing yourself to find out what to do. Don't sit there and say woe is me. If not you may as well write your will now and go and make your own coffin. You know, get out there and do something, you know, so understand that bit. That is really, really crucial that you have so much to offer and you're not giving or sharing that with the younger generation, you know, get out and about.