RETARDED GRANDPARENTS (This was actually reported by a teacher)

After Christmas, a teacher asked her young pupils how they spent their holiday away from school.
   
One child wrote the following:

We always used to spend the holidays with Grandma and Grandpa.

They used to live in a big brick house but Grandpa got retarded and they moved to Arizona .

Now they live in a tin box and have rocks painted green to look like grass. They ride around on their bicycles and wear name tags because they don't know who they are anymore.

They go to a building called a wreck center, but they must have got it fixed because it is all okay now, they do exercises there, but they don't do them very well.

There is a swimming pool too, but they all jump up and down in it with hats on..

At their gate, there is a doll house with a little old man sitting in it. He watches all day so nobody can escape.

Sometimes they sneak out, and go cruising in their golf carts.

Nobody there cooks, they just eat out.

And, they eat the same thing every night - early birds.

Some of the people can't get out past the man in the doll house.

The ones who do get out, bring food back to the wrecked center for pot luck.

My Grandma says that Grandpa worked all his life to earn his retardment and says I should work hard so I can be retarded someday too..

When I earn my retardment, I want to be the man in the doll house.

Then I will let people out, so they can visit their grandchildren.


.... PRICELESS

 

Barbara Starfield, M.D. (2000)   Summary by Kah Ying Choo

This Journal of the American Medical Association article illuminates the failure of the U.S. medical system in providing decent medical care for Americans.         
 
In spite of the rising health care costs that provide the illusion of improving health care, the American people do not enjoy good health, compared with their counterparts in the industrialized nations.  Among thirteen countries including Japan, Sweden, France and Canada, the U.S. was ranked 12th, based on the measurement of 16 health indicators such as life expectancy, low-birth-weight averages and infant mortality.  In another comparison reported by the World Health Organization that used a different set of health indicators, the U.S. also fared poorly with a ranking of 15 among 25 industrialized nations.

Although many people attribute poor health to the bad habits of the American public, Starfield (2000) points out that the Americans do not lead an unhealthy lifestyle compared to their counterparts.  For example, only 28 percent of the male population in the U.S. smoked, thus making it the third best nation in the category of smoking among the 13 industrialized nations.  The U.S. population also achieved a high ranking (5th best) for alcohol consumption.  In the category of men aged 50 to 70 years, the U.S. had the third lowest mean cholesterol concentrations among 13 industrialized nations. Therefore, the perception that the American public's poor health is a result of their negative health habits is false.

Even more significantly, the medical system has played a large role in undermining the health of Americans.  According to several research studies in the last decade, a total of 225,000 Americans per year have died as a result of their medical treatments:    
         

 · 12,000 deaths per year due to unnecessary surgery

· 7000 deaths per year due to medication errors in hospitals

· 20,000 deaths per year due to other errors in hospitals

· 80,000 deaths per year due to infections in hospitals

· 106,000 deaths per year due to negative effects of drugs
   
Thus, America's healthcare-system-induced deaths are the third leading cause of the death in the U.S., after heart disease and cancer.
   
One of the key problems of the U.S. health system is that as many as 40 million people in the U.S. do not have access to healthcare.  The social and economic inequalities that are an integral part of American society are mirrored in the inequality of access to the health care system.  Essentially, families of low socioeconomic status are cut off from receiving a decent level of health care.

By citing these statistics, Starfield (2000) highlights the need to examine the type of health care provided to the U.S. population.  The traditional medical paradigm that emphasizes the use of prescription medicine and medical treatment has not only failed to improve the health of Americans, but also led to the decline in the overall well-being of Americans.  Starfield's (2000) comparison of the medical systems of Japan and the U.S. captures the fundamental differences in the treatment approach.  Unlike the U.S., Japan has the healthiest population among the industrialized nations.  Instead of relying on sophisticated technology and professional personnel for medical treatment as in the U.S., Japan uses its technology solely for diagnostic purposes.  Furthermore, in Japan, family members, rather than hospital staff, are involved in caring for the patients.

The success of the Japanese medical system testifies to the dire need for Americans to alter their philosophical approach towards health and treatment.  In the blind reliance on drugs, surgery, technology and medical establishments, the American medical system has inflicted more harm than good on the U.S. population.  Starfield's (2000) article is invaluable in unveiling the catastrophic effects of the medical treatments provided to the American people.  In order to improve the medical system, American policymakers and the medical establishment need to adopt a comprehensive approach and critically examine the failure of the richest country in the world to provide decent health care for its people.  The reason that they have difficulty doing that is explained on the following page.

Starfield, B. (2000, July 26). Is US health really the best in the world? Journal of the American Medical Association, 284(4), 483-485.  Obtain full reprint.

An active social life appears to delay memory loss as one ages, a new study shows. The finding, which appears in the July issue of The American Journal of Public Health, suggests that strong social ties, through friends, family and community groups, can preserve our brain health as we age and that social isolation may be an important risk factor for cognitive decline in the elderly.

Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health used data gathered from 1998 to 2004 from the Health and Retirement Study, a large, nationally representative population of American adults ages 50 and older. Participants took memory tests at two-year intervals during the study period. Testers read a list of 10 common nouns to survey respondents, who were then asked to recall as many words as possible immediately and again after a five-minute delay. The researchers also measured social integration based on marital status, volunteer activities, and contact with parents, children and neighbors.

The results showed that individuals who in their 50s and 60s engaged in a lot of social activity also had the slowest rate of memory decline. In fact, compared to those who were the least socially active, study subjects who had the highest social integration scores had less than half the rate of memory loss. The researchers controlled for variables like age, gender, race and health status. Those who had the fewest years of formal education appeared to have the most to gain from active social lives as they aged. The study showed that the protective effect of social integration was greatest among individuals with fewer than 12 years of education.

"The working hypothesis is that social engagement is what makes you mentally engaged," said Lisa F. Berkman, the study's senior author and director of the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. "You can't sit and withdraw if you're constantly talking and working on things and figuring out problems in your daily life. It's not just completing a crossword puzzle, it's living your life."

The data are particularly important for those caring for aging family members. Simply visiting and giving support to an older family member does not make them socially engaged. "A lot of people when they think about the elderly focus on social support-things like what can I do for an older mother," Dr. Berkman said. "But having someone to count on is not what we're measuring. It's not about support, it's about being completely engaged and participating in our society."

What was notable about the study is that participants didn't have to be married or surrounded by extensive family to receive the protective effect of social engagement. "There are lots of relationships that are substitutable," Dr. Berkman said. "You don't have to have friends if you have family. If you don't have family but you have friends, that's good. If you volunteer in civic organizations, that can substitute. People don't have to have all of these things. They just have to have some breadth and diversity in the kinds of networks and ties they have in a community."

 

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