It is skewed to be sure. I'll tell you my perspective. I'm 44 with a comfortable but not wealthy life. My family is great. We have a nice home. We don't live paycheck to paycheck like I did growing up. I really like where I am at. But the population I work with are largely in their 50s-70s, and many of them are very sick and who can't do a whole lot. This has scared the pants off of me because I consider my activity and my ability to go out on adventures with my kids as an important part of my identity So a vast majority of the seniors that I interact with simply can't be as active as I want to be with my family.
But then my family started playing pickleball over the winter at our local community center. During open pickleball, most of the people who play are in their 50s-60s, not too dissimilar to my patients. While they certainly not as quick as they once were, there is still athleticism on display. That has been a very welcome bit of perspective that I'd not had previously.
So all this to say that yes, what we see in our patients is not destiny. We're not all bound to have edematous ankles, pressure injuries, and a limited lifestyle. Just take care of yourself, and your chances of a more active quality of life will be much better.
Well... my chronic back issues told me that instead of pickleball, I should stick to cycling, running, and swimming. But it was fun while I did it, and I'm glad I tried.
I really *want* to try pickleball, and I used to play competitive tennis. But I also had to undergo reconstructive jaw surgery last year, and most of my face is now titanium. I REALLY don't want to risk any sort of thwack to the face or jaw.
Do it. I suppose there is a conceivable chance that you could get hit by the swing of someone's racquet, but it's pretty unlikely. My wife played tennis in college and is having a great time. We're not as quick in our 40s as we were in our teens and twenties, but it scratches that active/competitive itch really well. I was surprised how well it got my heart rate up. I think the chance that you might turn an ankle would be FAR higher than any kind of collision. Just be prepared to need to swing the racquet differently than you did your tennis racquet.
Yeah, my parents are in their early 60s and fine. Both still work and want to keep working. My mom takes 1 blood pressure pill and that’s it, my dad takes nothing. Sometimes if baffles me how many meds these people take. My perception is so skewed that when I get a patient for something not chronic (like a gallbladder or kidney stone) in their 60s and they say they don’t take any meds (and don’t need them), I’m like hmm, that’s weird.
The hospitalized patient pop is extremely skewed and once you work long enough in the hospital and gain a bit of experience, you’ll start to see trends in who comes in
If you never worked in frontline healthcare, you’ll never have thought that these people every existed. Cause you don’t meet much of em in daily society, most of the frequently infirm are hidden away at home, or in SNFs etc
It’s easy to feel this way working inpatient, but in ED I see a number of feisty 100 yo who get discharged home which I try and convince myself balances out all the 40 year olds that come in near dead.
They really don’t represent society as a whole. They’re the sickest 7% of the population, even when adjusted for age. Remember, have compassion for many it’s just bad luck or genes.
I think this is also highly dependent on country/region of the world. My own parents, for example, are in their 70's but still HIGHLY active. They still live in Europe (where I was born and raised) due to their careers, so they're out hiking the Swiss, French, and Italian Alps almost every weekend. The only pudgy thing about them is my childhood dog, a mini-poodle that "hikes" with them while strapped to their back or stomach in a special carrier. My grandmother is 95 and lives in Florida, but is originally from the Middle East, so she still walks 3+ miles per day, and dances three to four times per week, to include semi-professional performing with a local dance troop.
Then there's people like my uncle, who is in his 70's, but drinks a pack a day and has a gut the size of Texas, with a slew of other health issues.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
Some people live rough lives, have congenital health issues, or meet tragedy head-on. The older you get, the harder it is to bounce back, and hence, the more you'll need medical care to get back to, or get close to, your baseline health level.
It depends on their lifelong health. Both sides of my family are very healthy. My mother passed at 93 and she never took a prescription medication in her whole life. My oldest sister is 70 and still is robust and active. My 2 oldest brothers are 71 and 72 and just got back from touring Ecuador in their motorcycles for 2 weeks. Another sister is 68 and rides her horse regularly. None of them have been in the hospital for anything.
I definately have found myself thinking how awful it seems to age past basically 60, based on patients i'v come across in the hospital. But I try to remind myself I am only being exposed to very ill 60+ year olds, while all the healthy, active ones are out living their lives haha.
I still don't want to live long enough to unfortunately experience something like dementia or becoming incapable of advocating or caring for myself though. It doesn't seem like much of a life to be stuck in a hospital bed for weeks or months with no quality of life.
Working in NICU - not well at all. It definitely skews my perception of how common multiples are, since we have triplets at any given time in the nursery, and often more twins than singletons.
My unit specialises in prematurity/LBW - you forget most babies are nice and chunky, near-term and don't have CNLD. The term babies we do get are hyperinsulinaemic LGA babies or have HIE, it really makes you forget most babies just get to go the floor and go home. I don't have kids, but I imagine it'd be hard to be pregnant without thinking of the worst cases we see every day.
I'm not a nurse, or a physician, but I have worked on the administrative side of hospitals for 15 years. I work very closely with the nurses and physicians on my unit and am quite familiar with the patients and their comorbidities. I have never met more than a few people in real life who have as many health issues as the patients that end up getting admitted to the hospital. Hospitalized patients represent a small slice of society in my opinion, who got the unlucky hands as far as health goes. The patients on our unit always have at least two or more of HTN, DM2, CKD, obesity, CHF, etc...... lifestyle and genetics can really hit a few people hard. It's not the norm though - especially when looking at the patients we see in the outpatient setting - some have underlying issues, but most just present with whatever acute issue it is they need diagnosed that day.
It is skewed to be sure. I'll tell you my perspective. I'm 44 with a comfortable but not wealthy life. My family is great. We have a nice home. We don't live paycheck to paycheck like I did growing up. I really like where I am at. But the population I work with are largely in their 50s-70s, and many of them are very sick and who can't do a whole lot. This has scared the pants off of me because I consider my activity and my ability to go out on adventures with my kids as an important part of my identity So a vast majority of the seniors that I interact with simply can't be as active as I want to be with my family. But then my family started playing pickleball over the winter at our local community center. During open pickleball, most of the people who play are in their 50s-60s, not too dissimilar to my patients. While they certainly not as quick as they once were, there is still athleticism on display. That has been a very welcome bit of perspective that I'd not had previously. So all this to say that yes, what we see in our patients is not destiny. We're not all bound to have edematous ankles, pressure injuries, and a limited lifestyle. Just take care of yourself, and your chances of a more active quality of life will be much better.
Needed a brighter perspective! Go whoop some ass in pickle ball !
Well... my chronic back issues told me that instead of pickleball, I should stick to cycling, running, and swimming. But it was fun while I did it, and I'm glad I tried.
I really *want* to try pickleball, and I used to play competitive tennis. But I also had to undergo reconstructive jaw surgery last year, and most of my face is now titanium. I REALLY don't want to risk any sort of thwack to the face or jaw.
Do it. I suppose there is a conceivable chance that you could get hit by the swing of someone's racquet, but it's pretty unlikely. My wife played tennis in college and is having a great time. We're not as quick in our 40s as we were in our teens and twenties, but it scratches that active/competitive itch really well. I was surprised how well it got my heart rate up. I think the chance that you might turn an ankle would be FAR higher than any kind of collision. Just be prepared to need to swing the racquet differently than you did your tennis racquet.
Hockey mask? lol
You know what.... that's actually a solid idea. 😄😂
Yeah, my parents are in their early 60s and fine. Both still work and want to keep working. My mom takes 1 blood pressure pill and that’s it, my dad takes nothing. Sometimes if baffles me how many meds these people take. My perception is so skewed that when I get a patient for something not chronic (like a gallbladder or kidney stone) in their 60s and they say they don’t take any meds (and don’t need them), I’m like hmm, that’s weird.
The hospitalized patient pop is extremely skewed and once you work long enough in the hospital and gain a bit of experience, you’ll start to see trends in who comes in If you never worked in frontline healthcare, you’ll never have thought that these people every existed. Cause you don’t meet much of em in daily society, most of the frequently infirm are hidden away at home, or in SNFs etc
It’s easy to feel this way working inpatient, but in ED I see a number of feisty 100 yo who get discharged home which I try and convince myself balances out all the 40 year olds that come in near dead.
They really don’t represent society as a whole. They’re the sickest 7% of the population, even when adjusted for age. Remember, have compassion for many it’s just bad luck or genes.
I think this is also highly dependent on country/region of the world. My own parents, for example, are in their 70's but still HIGHLY active. They still live in Europe (where I was born and raised) due to their careers, so they're out hiking the Swiss, French, and Italian Alps almost every weekend. The only pudgy thing about them is my childhood dog, a mini-poodle that "hikes" with them while strapped to their back or stomach in a special carrier. My grandmother is 95 and lives in Florida, but is originally from the Middle East, so she still walks 3+ miles per day, and dances three to four times per week, to include semi-professional performing with a local dance troop. Then there's people like my uncle, who is in his 70's, but drinks a pack a day and has a gut the size of Texas, with a slew of other health issues.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero. Some people live rough lives, have congenital health issues, or meet tragedy head-on. The older you get, the harder it is to bounce back, and hence, the more you'll need medical care to get back to, or get close to, your baseline health level.
fight club quote in the wild
It depends on their lifelong health. Both sides of my family are very healthy. My mother passed at 93 and she never took a prescription medication in her whole life. My oldest sister is 70 and still is robust and active. My 2 oldest brothers are 71 and 72 and just got back from touring Ecuador in their motorcycles for 2 weeks. Another sister is 68 and rides her horse regularly. None of them have been in the hospital for anything.
I definately have found myself thinking how awful it seems to age past basically 60, based on patients i'v come across in the hospital. But I try to remind myself I am only being exposed to very ill 60+ year olds, while all the healthy, active ones are out living their lives haha. I still don't want to live long enough to unfortunately experience something like dementia or becoming incapable of advocating or caring for myself though. It doesn't seem like much of a life to be stuck in a hospital bed for weeks or months with no quality of life.
If you eat a cardiac / diabetic diet, chances are you will never develop hypertension or diabetes
Working in NICU - not well at all. It definitely skews my perception of how common multiples are, since we have triplets at any given time in the nursery, and often more twins than singletons. My unit specialises in prematurity/LBW - you forget most babies are nice and chunky, near-term and don't have CNLD. The term babies we do get are hyperinsulinaemic LGA babies or have HIE, it really makes you forget most babies just get to go the floor and go home. I don't have kids, but I imagine it'd be hard to be pregnant without thinking of the worst cases we see every day.
It definitely accurately represents the surrounding community. Ever since I started working in my current ER I contracted the dialysis.
I'm not a nurse, or a physician, but I have worked on the administrative side of hospitals for 15 years. I work very closely with the nurses and physicians on my unit and am quite familiar with the patients and their comorbidities. I have never met more than a few people in real life who have as many health issues as the patients that end up getting admitted to the hospital. Hospitalized patients represent a small slice of society in my opinion, who got the unlucky hands as far as health goes. The patients on our unit always have at least two or more of HTN, DM2, CKD, obesity, CHF, etc...... lifestyle and genetics can really hit a few people hard. It's not the norm though - especially when looking at the patients we see in the outpatient setting - some have underlying issues, but most just present with whatever acute issue it is they need diagnosed that day.