Twenty-five percent of older people who fall and fracture a hip die within a year. Eighty percent are left with severe mobility problems, no longer able to walk a city block. Those who die or become severely disabled after a hip fracture are usually people who were frail or sick — or both — before their fall, said Dr. Mary Tinetti, a geriatrician at the Yale School of Medicine who has studied falls for more than 30 years. Okay, Ive heard those figures a million times. But my question is, when does someone qualify as older? I wonder because I am probably one of those stereotypical people spoken of in this article with an exaggerated sense of what I can still do. Or, at 57, am I just getting close to that line? As I read this article I was reminded of a discussion in one of my classes a couple of weeks ago. My class meets in the evenings so I try to use humor as much as possible to keep my students from hating their lives as they listen to me (I was an evening law student so I remember well what a huge difference humor makes at that hour). We were discussing business liabilities and I was describing my skiing prowess as an object lesson. The sad fact is, what I described to my students really is one of my normal days skiing. I head up the mountain and go back down very carefully a couple of times and then I find myself feeling very confident and start flying down the mountain. Invariably I lose my balance at some point and fall multiple times, often doing face plants in the process. My students seem to love that image and there is lots of laughter followed by a pickup in the conversation, which, of course, is what Im actually after. But I also noticed a few looks that suggested that the thought going through some minds was What is WRONG with this old man??? So, should one be worried at 57 about holding an exaggerated view of what they can still do? For what its worth, Im planning to ski this winter and I have every intention of losing my skis, doing face plants and the whole nine yards. And I have every intention of running in slightly icy conditions, etc. Tom Magliozzi once said that he preferred to drive his car with the top down, as open as possible, because he figured he would be in a confined space for a very long time soon enough (RIP, Tommy; I get it, even though I cant stand convertibles!). Thats how I feel about the things I do. Im not giving into confined living any sooner than I have to... nytimes/2014/11/04/science/a-tiny-stumble-a-life-upended.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
Posted on: Tue, 04 Nov 2014 14:14:55 +0000
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