Elderly people who become disabled are generally thought to be on a downward slide to ever-increasing deterioration.
But that’s far from being the case. A Yale University School of Medicine study of 213 people older than 70 found that 30 percent of those who had once been disabled regained full independence.
“There is a misperception among the lay public as well as the medical community about the ability of older persons to recover from disability, that once an older person becomes disabled and dependent, it means a ticket to the nursing home,” Dr. Thomas M. Gill reported in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
ANOTHER REASON NOT TO DRINK
A shattered face is the newest risk that can occur as a result of excessive drinking, according to British researchers.
They found that half the facial injuries in the 15-to-25 age group were sustained in assaults, usually in bars or on streets, and were associated with drinking by the victim or the assailant. Each year in England more than 125,000 facial injuries from assaults are reported.
One important finding is that alcohol may not increase aggression so much as it makes the victim more defenseless against a knuckle sandwich, Dr. Jonathan Shepherd of the University of Wales College of Medicine, Cardiff, reported in the British Medical Journal.
HIGH PREVALENCE OF HEADACHES
“Not today boss, I’ve got a tension headache.”
The first nationwide study of tension headaches finds that nearly 40 percent of the 13,345 people surveyed suffered from episodic tension-type headaches. Chronic tension-type headaches are more severe but less common.
Of those suffering episodic tension headaches, 43.6 percent reported an average of five days of reduced effectiveness annually due to their headaches, and 8.3 percent missed an average of 8.9 days of work, said Dr. Brian S. Schwartz of Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health.
