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Berwick Area Heart Support Group
November 2007 newsletter
Next meeting November 7th at the Day Hospital, Berwick Infirmary from 7.00pm - 9.00pm Guest speaker: Jo Curtis, the Disability Sports Officer for Berwick upon Tweed Borough Council. Jo is going to split her talk into three parts, I'll keep you all in suspense on the content until the night, I know you'll enjoy yourselves, so come along.
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Firstly before I start, can I please ask everyone, in the nicest way possible, especially those who have not been to the meetings for a few months to please try and make the effort to attend.
I know there are lots of other distractions, ie holidays, the garden, various TV programmes, family and umpteen other reasons, but attendances have been low recently, and some of the recent speakers have travelled a long way, and it seems a shame when they only have a dozen or so people to talk to.
Secondly, Good luck to Irene Bruce, We have been thinking of you and glad you are home and on the mend. (A little bird has been keeping me up to date)
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At our last meeting on 3rd. October, our speaker was Stephen Young of FISHNETS. If you look closely I have written of Fishnets, not in Fishnets.
It actually stands for Fitness, Involvement, Safety and Health Networks. Its one of nineteen projects throughout England, who has
60 million pounds to share between them from Partnership for Older People, and is all backed by Department of Health, and Northumberland NHS.
The ultimate aim of Fishnets is A) to stop people falling over, and B) stop people who do not need to from going into care.
As always there are facts and figures to back up the original reasons for setting up these types of Organisations. The total physical and emotional costs when an elderly person falls and breaks a hip / thigh bone, including ambulance and hospitalisation, exceeds £50,000, if this happens to an over 75 year old, 60% will lose their independence and 40% will have to go permanently into care, then where do the true costs stop. Other facts and figures make even grimmer reading.
So what do they plan to do about it? They can’t stop people falling and breaking bones, but by trying to keep the slightly younger generation a bit fitter, they will hopefully have less falls as they get older. To help with this there are grants available to help start new clubs or activities that encourage people to become fitter, with a view to any such gathering being able to be self sufficient and continue after any such funding has stopped.
The four criteria expected are,
Promoting physical activity,
Promoting social inclusion,
Meeting a gap in local opportunities/services/
activities for older people, and
Promoting independence.
It does not have to be excessively hard exercise, like training for the London marathon, or The Great North Run. It can be any form of exercise. Stephen did give an example of carpet bowls. Even if you already attend a club or get together and you want to expand the activities to offer your members, get in touch with Stephen, he will do his best to keep you right, and keep you on the right track.
He also mentioned Arts and crafts, sport, Tai – Chi, exercise groups, gardening projects, and equipment for exercise projects.
Fishnets also have contacts through Northumberland Stars which offers to anyone over 60 or has a disability, and needs the services of a younger/fitter person to help with Fixing curtain rails, hanging curtains, put in safety items, check and install fire alarms, fasten loose carpets, move furniture, put up shelves, unblock sinks, change light bulbs, repair gates, fit letter boxes, put up pictures, put up mirrors, and many more of these little jobs that would involve your feet leaving the ground, you can get these jobs done FREE.
There is a similar scheme being run by Berwick Borough Council.
If you wish to get in touch with Fishnets you can at.
Fishnets
Tweed House,
Hepscott Park,
Stannington, Morpeth,
NE61 6NF.
Tel. No. 01670 534477 /534499
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RECENT NEWS:
statins safe and beneficial effect after more than a decade
Report of a follow up study.
Phil writes:
Statins and blood ‘cholesterol’ (lowering ‘LDL’) were still controversial after my heart attack in 1990. I remember, a couple of years later, being invited by a friend to a meeting of the Statistical Society in Edinburgh, to hear a presentation by Glasgow researchers detailing their forthcoming 5 years long study. They were going to use a statin to try to prevent death and heart attacks in men by starting before any disease had showed. (Glasgow was just about ‘world capital’ for heart attacks and the study was aimed at the typical Glaswegian male population). The care with which these researchers designed their study paid off. Five years later the results swayed the previously sceptical UK’s ‘medical establishment’, and ‘statins’ gradually became available on the NHS.
Now, a follow up study has showed that patients from the study got very long term (safe) benefits from their years of routinely taking the statin in the original trial. We are now about 15 years on from the start of the original study.
New statins have since come along. (We will keep you updated.)
Statins are a great help, but they do not solve, for most of us, all cardiovascular problems (stroke, MI, or other problems such as obstructions of the flow of blood in kidneys or legs or blockages in the flow to the brain) which is why we in our Group always stress the benefits of exercise and changed eating habits, lowering your blood pressure, losing weight etc… etc.. Stopping smoking, for example, appears to have a bigger and better effect on risk even than this statin.
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Statin treatment prevents cardiovascular events and death in the long-term
(N Engl J Med 2007; 357: 1477-1486)
‘West of Scotland coronary prevention study’
Quote: “There was no excess of deaths from noncardiovascularcauses in the pravastatin group. We observed a 22 percent reductionin the risk of death from any cause in the pravastatin group.
Conclusions: [in the original 5 years] Treatment with pravastatin significantly reducedthe incidence of myocardial infarction and death from cardiovascularcauses without adversely affecting the risk of death from non-cardiovascularcauses …”
"This result was presumably due to stabilization of existing plaque and a slowing of the progression of coronary artery disease."
“In this [2007] analysis, 5 years of treatment with pravastatinwas associated with a significant reduction in coronary eventsfor a subsequent 10 years in men with hypercholesterolemia whodid not have a history of myocardial infarction.”
They add: "There was no evidence of an overall increase in the risk of death from non-cardiovascular causes or in the incidence of cancer."
Patients receivedpravastatin (40 mg each evening). A control group received an ‘empty placebo’.
Quote: “The reductions in death from CHD or nonfatal MI with pravastatin treatment, compared with placebo, were significant during each of the trial stages. Relative risk reductions for death from (or reductions in hospitalization for) CHD were seen in patients treated with pravastatin during the trial, at 34%, and in the post-trial period, at 20%, compared with those receiving placebo.”
Phil
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Wallys Yarn
On the first day, God created the dog and said: “Sit all day by the door of your house and bark at anyone who comes in or walks past. For this, I will give you a life span of twenty years.”
The dog said: “That's a long time to be barking. How about only ten years and I'll give you back the other ten?” So God agreed.
On the second day, God created the monkey and said: “Entertain people, do tricks, and make them laugh. For this, I'll give you a twenty-year life span.”
The monkey said: “Monkey tricks for twenty years? That's a pretty long time to perform. How about I give you back ten like the dog did?” And God agreed
On the third day, God created the cow and said: “You must go into the field with the farmer all day long and suffer under the sun, have calves and give milk to support the farmer's family For this, I will give you a life span of sixty years.”
The cow said: “That's kind of a tough life you want me to live for sixty years. How about twenty and I'll give back the other forty?” And God agreed again.
On the fourth day, God created man and said: “Eat, sleep, play, marry and enjoy your life For this, I'll give you twenty years.” But man said: “Only twenty years? Could you possibly give me my twenty, the forty the cow gave back, the ten the monkey gave back, and the ten the dog gave back; that makes eighty, okay?”
“Okay,' said God, 'You asked for it.”So that is why for our first twenty years we eat, sleep, play and enjoy ourselves. For the next forty years we slave in the sun to support our family. For the next ten years we do monkey tricks to entertain the grandchildren. And for the last ten years we sit on the front porch and bark at everyone
Life has now been explained to you...
Wally’s Yarn 2
A farmer on a remote Cheviot farm brings up his only son alone - they never leave the farm, he works the boy hard 20hrs a day 7 days a week...when the boy is 21 his father says "I dont want you thinking I am not generous or grateful, now you are 21 I am going to take you for your first visit to a big town called Wooler (tiny local village)"
The boy is excited, when they get there his father offers him whatever he wants in gratitude for his work on the farm - seeing his first ice-cream the boy asks for one and gets it....minutes later father says "you know I am not very sociable, lets get back to the farm"
He works him 20hrs 7 days a week until the boy reaches 60 - as before, the man says "I am not going to my grave you thinking I am not generous or grateful, you are now 60 and I am prepared to take you for a second treat to Wooler"
When they get there the 60yr son sees his first pint of beer and asks for one - whereupon his father slaps him over the head and shouts " after ice-cream?????!!@@@@"
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