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Author Archives: Elen Samuel
Virtual Beds anyone?
The current crisis in the NHS is wearingly familiar. There is talk of patients waiting, and occasionally dying, on trolleys before being admitted, ambulances waiting for hours outside hospitals with paramedics before A&E have the space to take over their … Continue reading
Posted in Europe, Health Delivery, Health Management, Health Policy, hospital beds, Medicine, old age
Tagged health service, Trolleys, winter crisis
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Breast surgeon guilty of doing unnecessary operations.
How would you feel if you had had an operation or treatment that you thought was necessary and then found out that you never needed this treatment? If you were told you had cancer but you never had it? Pretty … Continue reading
Assisted dying.
I wrote in my last blog that recent advances in treating dementia have shown promise. I said, “Drugs are being developed to target monoclonal antibodies against amyloid β, the protein that seems to be awry in Alzheimer’s disease”. However since … Continue reading
Old Age part 4 – Losing it
– Dementia and its prevention Having decided that everlasting life is impractical, we can still use existing knowledge to improve our survival. But we want our extra years to be enjoyable, and that won’t be the case if our brains … Continue reading
Cheating Death
Ageing Most people do not want to talk about death and human life is held up to be absolutely sacrosanct; any death is a tragedy. There seems to be a taboo about admitting that we will all have to die … Continue reading
Posted in Medicine, old age, science
Tagged Ageing, Calorie-restricted diet, Death, DNA, Telomeres
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Old age doesn’t come by itself – part 3
It seems characteristic of older people these days that we think of ourselves as much younger than these old people we see around us. This because inside we still think of ourselves as being youthful if we feel well, even … Continue reading
Posted in Backache, Health Delivery, Health Policy, Medicine, old age, Physiology, sexual relationships
Tagged Alzheimer's disease, behaviour, dementia, exercise, health, heart attack, old age
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Old age doesn’t come by itself – part 2.
There is no doubt that the effects of getting older can be very troublesome. With the insouciance of youth in the surgery I would often joke about it, and sometimes say “well, the alternative is worse”, meaning that at least … Continue reading
Posted in Health Delivery, healthy food, Medicine, Physiology
Tagged deafness, eyes, health, sleep, teeth
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Old age doesn’t come by itself
There is an old Welsh saying that patients used to tell me when they came to see me in the surgery complaining of aches and pains, or failing eyesight and many other things – “old age doesn’t come by itself”, … Continue reading
Posted in Backache, Medicine
Tagged muscle weakness, skin, sun damage, vitamin supplements, wrinkles
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David Attenborough or Alice Roberts – who do you think is right?
It has been quite a week for those of us interested in the evolution of human beings. On Thursday, David Attenborough gave a talk on BBC radio 4 entitled “The Waterside Ape” and brought us an update on this intriguing … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropology, aquatic Ape Hypothesis, Elaine Morgan, Medicine, science
Tagged BBC, bones, evolution Sir David Attenborough, hominids, Prof Alice Roberts
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Children taught adults the beginning of language, not the other way around
I am never sure why scientists of all disciplines, anthropologists especially, say that the most distinctive thing about humans compared with all other primates is the fact that we walk upright. All right, it frees our hands to do all … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropology, aquatic Ape Hypothesis, Elaine Morgan, Food, healthy food, language, linguistics, Medicine, Physiology
Tagged babies, children, fat, hominids
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Elen Samuel, doctor and writer 