Whenever, I (‘I’ being the tutor at medical school) teach clinical medicine to students in the fourth year of medicine, I ask the following question:
"What are the causes of mental confusion in the elderly?
Some answers like: "Tumors in the head".
I answer: No!
Others suggest: "Early symptoms of Alzheimer's".
I answer again: No!
With each rejection of their answers, their responses dry up.
And they are even more open-mouthed, when I list the most common cause:
- dehydration
It may sound like a joke; but it isn't.
People over 60 generally stop feeling thirsty and consequently, stop drinking fluids.
When no one is around to remind them to drink fluids, they quickly dehydrate.
Dehydration is severe and affects the entire body. It may cause abrupt mental confusion, a drop in blood pressure, increased heart palpitations, angina (chest pain), coma and even death.
This habit of forgetting to drink fluids, begins at age 60, when we have just over 50% of the water we should have in our bodies.
People over 60 have a lower water reserve. This is part of the natural aging process.
But there are more complications. Although they are dehydrated, they don't feel like drinking water, because their internal balance mechanisms don't work very well.
Conclusion:
People over 60 years old dehydrate easily, not only because they have a smaller water supply; but also because they do not feel the lack of water in the body.
Although people over 60 may look healthy, the performance of reactions and chemical functions can damage their entire body.
So here are two alerts:
1) Get into the habit of drinking liquids. Liquids include water, juices, teas, coconut water, soups, and water-rich fruits, such as watermelon, melon, peaches and pineapple; Orange and tangerine also work.
The important thing is that, every two hours, you must drink some liquid.
Remember this!
2) Alert for family members: constantly offer fluids to people over 60. At the same time, observe them.
If you realize that they are rejecting liquids and, from one day to the next, they are irritable, breathless or display a lack of attention, these are almost certainly recurrent symptoms of dehydration.
Inspired to drink more water now??
Send this information out to others! DO IT NOW! Your friends and family need to know for themselves and help you to be healthier and happier.
*It's good to share with people over 60* an anyone intending to get to over 60 !!!
My added comments.
On my stay in hospital early 2016 my oximeter SpO2 reading was always 95%, the hospital put me on blood thinners because I was dehydrated. Later on that year I had a hernia operation, after the operation I was told by the ward doctor to drink lots of water to flush out some stuff that was given to me during the operation, after drinking almost 3 liters of water for some logic I over did, in between two nurses reading of about half a hour the SpO2 suddenly jumped from 95% to 98%. The nurse thought the oximeter had gone faulty and she went and got another one, and sounded very surprised to get the same higher reading. After the SpO2 got to 98% I stopped drinking so much water.
With all the walking I did before 2016, such as 40 minutes fast walk each way to work and back home each day and with lots of other walking I slowly dehydrated myself.
Since then I realized there is no need to splash out on the cost and buy oximeters, although it is faster and best to have one ready to see if you are dehydrated during the very hot summer days, you can see there is a strong link between “The amount of water (liquid) you might drink, the amount of work or sweating you might do and the SpO2 reading.” There could be a cheaper, better test so you do not need to use the oximeter so much, back in the days when I was dehydrated and my SpO2 reading would have been stuck on 95%, my first toilet visit of the morning just after I got out of bed was always dark yellow until I drank more water during the morning, Now I have realised if my first toilet visit of the day is not almost clear, it means I have not been drinking enough water during the day before.
More things on water.
I used to get rid of a runny nose during the flu season, by drinking a glass of water every 20 minutes, the nose dries up after 2 hours. It seems drinking enough water during the flu season helps flush out any virus from the body. (but I never get the influenza now, or cold sores for that matter since I cut down on food rich with refined sugar, NZ recipe for Milo is just a sugar fix with hot chocolate flavouring, that is why when it was first made off-shore nobody liked it, until they put all the sugar back into it.)
When I first brought a Brita water filter jug I noticed the filtered water was not much different from unfiltered tap water. I can understand why some people might buy a filtering system and quickly lose interest with the on going cost to keep it going. I heard that to filter water best, the water needs to go through water filters at least three times, so I went and bought another water jug filter. I use the old jug to get water from the tap and pass water from jug to jug twice so the water goes through a filter four times and drink water from the new jug. I am sure the water feels softer or something, unless the extra filtering gives me some kind of placebo effect. This comment of passing water through filters at least three times is backed up by someone who needed to filter water enough to make his own home made wine succeed.
I think it is better to drink most water during the morning and avoid drinking so much liquid during the late afternoon and evening. I had a very good naturopath who got out of bed during the night to make a toilet visit called “nocturia”, he tripped and hit his head against the wall, since then he claimed he can not think as good. There is some claim that eating carbohydrates late afternoon, evening might make someone more likely to make a middle of the night toilet visit.
The telephone numbers are for New Zealand since there is not telephone books anymore,
The light gray font was done that way, so once it is read you could write on top of it with whiteboard marker.
No doubt you could use the idea to make your own up
"What are the causes of mental confusion in the elderly?
Some answers like: "Tumors in the head".
I answer: No!
Others suggest: "Early symptoms of Alzheimer's".
I answer again: No!
With each rejection of their answers, their responses dry up.
And they are even more open-mouthed, when I list the most common cause:
- dehydration
It may sound like a joke; but it isn't.
People over 60 generally stop feeling thirsty and consequently, stop drinking fluids.
When no one is around to remind them to drink fluids, they quickly dehydrate.
Dehydration is severe and affects the entire body. It may cause abrupt mental confusion, a drop in blood pressure, increased heart palpitations, angina (chest pain), coma and even death.
This habit of forgetting to drink fluids, begins at age 60, when we have just over 50% of the water we should have in our bodies.
People over 60 have a lower water reserve. This is part of the natural aging process.
But there are more complications. Although they are dehydrated, they don't feel like drinking water, because their internal balance mechanisms don't work very well.
Conclusion:
People over 60 years old dehydrate easily, not only because they have a smaller water supply; but also because they do not feel the lack of water in the body.
Although people over 60 may look healthy, the performance of reactions and chemical functions can damage their entire body.
So here are two alerts:
1) Get into the habit of drinking liquids. Liquids include water, juices, teas, coconut water, soups, and water-rich fruits, such as watermelon, melon, peaches and pineapple; Orange and tangerine also work.
The important thing is that, every two hours, you must drink some liquid.
Remember this!
2) Alert for family members: constantly offer fluids to people over 60. At the same time, observe them.
If you realize that they are rejecting liquids and, from one day to the next, they are irritable, breathless or display a lack of attention, these are almost certainly recurrent symptoms of dehydration.
Inspired to drink more water now??
Send this information out to others! DO IT NOW! Your friends and family need to know for themselves and help you to be healthier and happier.
*It's good to share with people over 60* an anyone intending to get to over 60 !!!
My added comments.
On my stay in hospital early 2016 my oximeter SpO2 reading was always 95%, the hospital put me on blood thinners because I was dehydrated. Later on that year I had a hernia operation, after the operation I was told by the ward doctor to drink lots of water to flush out some stuff that was given to me during the operation, after drinking almost 3 liters of water for some logic I over did, in between two nurses reading of about half a hour the SpO2 suddenly jumped from 95% to 98%. The nurse thought the oximeter had gone faulty and she went and got another one, and sounded very surprised to get the same higher reading. After the SpO2 got to 98% I stopped drinking so much water.
With all the walking I did before 2016, such as 40 minutes fast walk each way to work and back home each day and with lots of other walking I slowly dehydrated myself.
Since then I realized there is no need to splash out on the cost and buy oximeters, although it is faster and best to have one ready to see if you are dehydrated during the very hot summer days, you can see there is a strong link between “The amount of water (liquid) you might drink, the amount of work or sweating you might do and the SpO2 reading.” There could be a cheaper, better test so you do not need to use the oximeter so much, back in the days when I was dehydrated and my SpO2 reading would have been stuck on 95%, my first toilet visit of the morning just after I got out of bed was always dark yellow until I drank more water during the morning, Now I have realised if my first toilet visit of the day is not almost clear, it means I have not been drinking enough water during the day before.
More things on water.
I used to get rid of a runny nose during the flu season, by drinking a glass of water every 20 minutes, the nose dries up after 2 hours. It seems drinking enough water during the flu season helps flush out any virus from the body. (but I never get the influenza now, or cold sores for that matter since I cut down on food rich with refined sugar, NZ recipe for Milo is just a sugar fix with hot chocolate flavouring, that is why when it was first made off-shore nobody liked it, until they put all the sugar back into it.)
When I first brought a Brita water filter jug I noticed the filtered water was not much different from unfiltered tap water. I can understand why some people might buy a filtering system and quickly lose interest with the on going cost to keep it going. I heard that to filter water best, the water needs to go through water filters at least three times, so I went and bought another water jug filter. I use the old jug to get water from the tap and pass water from jug to jug twice so the water goes through a filter four times and drink water from the new jug. I am sure the water feels softer or something, unless the extra filtering gives me some kind of placebo effect. This comment of passing water through filters at least three times is backed up by someone who needed to filter water enough to make his own home made wine succeed.
I think it is better to drink most water during the morning and avoid drinking so much liquid during the late afternoon and evening. I had a very good naturopath who got out of bed during the night to make a toilet visit called “nocturia”, he tripped and hit his head against the wall, since then he claimed he can not think as good. There is some claim that eating carbohydrates late afternoon, evening might make someone more likely to make a middle of the night toilet visit.
The telephone numbers are for New Zealand since there is not telephone books anymore,
The light gray font was done that way, so once it is read you could write on top of it with whiteboard marker.
No doubt you could use the idea to make your own up
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