Hidden Carers – sharing the stories of older male carers

Louise Bate is an Engagement and Communications Officer with Healthwatch Dorset. Healthwatch is an independent watchdog, working to help people get the best out of their local health and social care services. Healthwatch enables local people to influence the delivery and design of local services, by sharing their views with health and care commissioners and providers: www.healthwatchdorset.co.uk 

More than 51,000 carers in England are men aged over 85; a number that has more than doubled in the last decade. It’s such a huge number of people that it’s hard to imagine. We wanted to make the numbers real – so we’ve been working with Bournemouth University and the Carers Support Service to listen to older male carers, gather their stories and give them a stronger voice.

Carers over the age of 85 are the only demographic of carers where men outnumber women (59%). Men are more likely to become carers in older age than at other times in their life and usually as a result of caring for their partners.

Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds

Dr Zoe Wyrko is a Consultant physician at University Hospital Birmingham and is the Director of Workforce for the BGS. In this blog she discusses the recent Channel 4 programme in which she appeared, Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds. She tweets @geri_baby

I’ve always had a soft spot for care homes. As a child I would occasionally go into work with my Mum and meet some of the old ladies she talked about. When I was older I started work in the same nursing home as a kitchen girl on Saturdays, and then later progressed to health care assistant. I remain proud of my training record from that time, showing I am competent to deliver personal care, clean dentures and cut nails.

This is why I was excited when an approach came from CPL productions, who were looking for geriatricians to be involved with a television programme they wanted to make about introducing children to a care home environment.

Depression among older people living in care homes – a call for good practice examples

Caroline Cooke is Policy Manager at British Geriatrics Society. Caroline is currently supporting a joint project being carried out by BGS and the Old Age Faculty at the Royal College of Psychiatry. Here she explains the aim of the project and how you can help to make it a success. 

In the UK 405,000 older people (65+) currently live in care homes. Older people living in care homes have complex health needs and most residents have multiple long-term conditions, significant disability and frailty which affect both their physical and mental health. Dementia affects the majority of residents in care homes to some degree and depression is common. Integrated provision is required to meet the needs of care home residents who require co-ordinated input from generalists and specialists in multiple disciplines, and partnerships are essential to integration. 

September issue of Age & Ageing now available

The September 2015 issue of Age and Ageing, the journal of the British Geriatrics Society is out now!

A full table of contents is available here, with editorials, research papers, reviews, short reports, case reports book reviews and more.

Hot topics this issue include:

• Conservative management of urinary incontinence
• Drug treatment of lower urinary tract symptoms
• Discharging older people from the hospital emergency department
• Screening for depression in hospital
• Sexual behaviour and quality of life

The Editor’s View can be read here.

This issue’s free access papers are:

• Medical students’ and doctors’ attitudes towards older patients and their care in hospital settings: a conceptualisation

• Low heel ultrasound parameters predict mortality in men: results from the European Male Ageing Study (EMAS)

• Changing non-participation in epidemiological studies of older people: evidence from the Cognitive Function and Ageing Study I and II

Book review – “Geriatric Medicine: An Evidence Based Approach”

Philip Braude is an ST6 in Geriatric Medicine, specialising in perioperative medicine.

Geriatric Medicine: An Evidence Based Approach, edited by Frank Lally and Christine Roffe, is written by an eminent list of international experts condensing key and often difficult issues in modern geriatrics to chapters of a few pages. It aims to be a “clinical reference for health care professionals” but is certainly not a comprehensive geriatric medicine text.

Good mental health care is a part of good geriatrics

Tom Dening is Professor of Dementia Research at the Institute of Mental Health at the University of Nottingham. He tweets at @TomDening 

Sir Simon Wessely (yes, we are going through a phase where the RCPsych Presidents get gongs – I suppose it’s cheaper than investing in mental health services) has made some eloquent points about the current state of mental health provision.

He didn’t specifically mention older people, though of course they have common mental disorders like depression. Also he didn’t talk about the complex world where physical and mental ill health conspire against people and bring them into contact with geriatrics or old age psychiatry, or both.

Links between depression and syncope in older people

Jaspreet Bhangu is a Clinical Research Fellow and Specialist Registrar in Geriatric Medicine in Dublin Ireland. His paper The relationship between syncope, depression and anti-depressant use in older adults was recently published in Age and Ageing journal.

The Irish LongituDinal study on Ageing (TILDA) is a large scale, nationally representative, study on ageing in Ireland. TILDA collects information on all aspects of health, economic and social circumstances from people aged 50 and over in a series of data collection waves once every two years. In addition to providing vital information for strategic planning and policy for older people in Ireland, it provides a rich scientific database to further study common diseases in older adults.  It has recruited over 8000 people and has captured important data on falls and syncope in older people.

Mental wellbeing of older people in care homes

The BGS is one of many organisations who support the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in their commitment to improve quality standards for mental wellbeing of older people in care homes.

NICE has published a new quality standard to help care homes tackle loneliness, depression and low self-esteem in older people. Also available is the NICE Pathway for mental wellbeing and older people overview, which sets out the guidance and resources in a simple format.