When the golden years are not so golden

Almira Osmanovic Thunstrom is a PhD Candidate at the Aging Research Center at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, and tweets as @almirathunstrom. In this blog, she introduces her recent Age & Ageing paper on perceived stress levels amongst over-65s.

Growing up in the 1990’s my vision of ageing came from the show The Golden Girls. The show depicted ageing as a time of great joy, adventure and the daily stressors of work and children as minimal in the post-retirement years. I was also greatly blessed to live with my grandfather, whose years were far from golden. He worried about his deteriorating health, he missed his wife and eventually diseases got the best of him: he suffered from vascular dementia and passed away at the tender age of 66. Already at a young age, I witnessed how diverse the ageing process could be.

Traineespotting

Sarita Sochart is a consultant in Geriatric and Stroke medicine and Foundation Programme Director Health Education North West. Paul Baker is a geriatrician in Bolton and Deputy Postgraduate Dean, running the largest Foundation School in the country.

In this blog, based on their presentation at the BGS Spring Conference in Nottingham, they look at quality management in training, and trainees in difficulty.

Our presentation at the BGS conference this spring focused on the Trainee in Difficulty (TID). Evidence suggests that nationally 2-6% of all doctors may experience difficulties, sufficient to raise concern about their performance (Donaldson, 1994; NCAS, 2006).

For the purposes of the study the Northwestern Deanery has identified a TID as-

“Any trainee who has caused concern to his/her educational supervisor(s) about the ability to carry out their duties, which has required unusual measures”

This would mean anything outside the normal trainer-trainee processes where the Training Programme Director has been called upon to take or recommend action.”

(NW Deanery, 2013)

Trainees consistently experience high intensity of work, conflicting time demands and a progressive increase in professional responsibility. They are not supernumerary to service requirements and are aware of increasing expectations from the public and threat of litigation. However, with compulsory appraisals, assessments based around work and a culture of reflection, it is hoped that any TID will receive adequate and appropriate support.

Stressful life events significantly raise the risk of falls in older men

A study of around 5,000 older men has shown that stressful life events such as death of a loved one, or serious financial problems, significantly raised the risk of falls in the year following the incident. The research is published online today in the journal Age and Ageing.

Dr Howard A. Fink of the VA Medical Center in Minneapolis and colleagues conducted a study of 5,994 community-dwelling men over the age of 65 who were enrolled in the Osteoporotic Fractures in Men (MrOS) study in six locations across the United States. 5,125 participated in a second study visit and answered questions on stressful life events in the prior year. A further subset of 4,981 men reported complete data on falls for one year after the second visit.