That's my whole life story, Mate.You felt used and abused by an idiot who has no idea what they are doing?
Because some of us only needed a credit/debit card once we had retired - and that, under sufferance. Meanwhile, we carried on as we usually did, with money in our wallet and a cheque account...How can old people not even figure out how to read a credit card? It's a piece of plastic with numbers on it. It's been around for decades.
A lot of my elderly customers use a debit card very reluctantly. Many still go to the Post Office and draw out their pension in cash and only use that throughout the week. They may well have a bank account for savings, but not need a card for that account. They also won't use the contactless function and, if they do, their card is wrapped in baking foil in their wallets, against all those thieves with card readers running through crowds.Because some of us only needed a credit/debit card once we had retired - and that, under sufferance. Meanwhile, we carried on as we usually did, with money in our wallet and a cheque account...
The best way to avoid spoilage and maintain freshness is to stay cool ...The U.S. government has lowered the life expectancy in the U.S. by one year because of covid.
For males 76 to 75 years, and females 78 to 77 years.
Like in the original movie “ Blade Runner “, I have past my expiration date, holy crap !
FULL STORY: https://www.sciencealert.com/aging-isn-t-all-bad-some-key-mental-abilities-improve-as-we-get-olderSome Key Mental Abilities Seem to Improve as We Get Older, Proving Aging Isn't All Bad
... As our brains inevitably grow older, some of our mental power is destined to fade, like spatial visualization or our mind's processing speed. Yet research has found there are other mental abilities that can improve with time, such as vocabulary and verbal comprehension.
New research among 702 participants aged 58 to 98 has now identified two fundamental brain functions that seem to get stronger as we get older.
The study had participants complete an Attention Network Test (ANT), whereby volunteers are shown a central arrow and two flanking arrows on a computer screen and asked to press a button corresponding to the central arrow's orientation as fast as they can. ...
Comparing the response times of all their participants and controlling for a variety of confounding factors, researchers found older volunteers were not as good at staying vigilant in the task. ...
That said, when it came to cues that shifted the brain's attention to look at a particular point on the screen, older people seemed to be better at orienting their attention as they aged, and this was true right up until quite old age. ...
The older the individual, the better they also tended to be at canceling out distracting or conflicting cues that appeared on screen – a skill that improved at least until a person's mid-to-late 70s.
The researchers were testing participants' brain processes associated with alerting (being prepared to adapt to new information), orienting (shifting the brain's resources to specific locations in space), and executive inhibition (blocking out distractions to focus on something). ...
The current research suggests older individuals might be slower to respond to novel situations while driving a vehicle, but they are better at staying focused and orienting their attention where needed on the road. ...
This ability to control one's attention is considered a higher-order brain function, and while the authors are not suggesting all executive functions remain intact or even improve in a person's 70s, it seems at least some do. ...
"These results are amazing, and have important consequences for how we should view aging," says neuroscientist Michael Ullman from Georgetown University.
"People have widely assumed that attention and executive functions decline with age, despite intriguing hints from some smaller-scale studies that raised questions about these assumptions. But the results from our large study indicate that critical elements of these abilities actually improve during aging, likely because we simply practice these skills throughout our life."
The findings run contrary to a dozen or so other tests that have found aging impacts all three aspects of attention.
But as the authors of the current study point out, these previous trials had relatively small sample sizes and often failed to control for other factors, like sex and education. ...
A good innings!
The UK's oldest person living with a heart transplant has said he thinks about his donor's family nearly every day as he celebrates his 90th birthday.
Ted Warner had the surgery at the Royal Papworth Hospital, Cambridgeshire, in August 1990, and was only expected to live for eight more years. Mr Warner, from Leicestershire, is holding a belated birthday celebration on Sunday after turning 90 in June.
"It's all possible because of my donor," he said. "I wrote a letter to their family many years ago and had a little bit of contact, but then they moved with no forwarding address and I could no longer reach them, but that's OK because it must have been so tough for them and what they were going through. I think about them almost every single day, even now. Especially now. You can't ever put into words how kind, generous and unselfish he and his family are for donating his heart to somebody he doesn't know."
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-58361917
Oh my goodness, for some reason this story warms me right down to my very sou.l.
What a great story, I wish there were more like this out there. Thanks for sharing, Ramonmercao.
A friend of mine had a double lung transplant, gave her another 20 years.
Aww...
Please tell your friend I said, congratulations.
She died twenty years after the transplant, in 2011. Your sentiments are appreciated though.
I think she has the right idea and knows that wasting energy and time on what are really frivolities won't help matters! I'm always puzzled, by the way, why people are always described as having a "battle with cancer." Nobody ever uses that phrase with other equally, or sometimes a lot worse, illnesses. It always seems to be personalised, if that's the right term.A elderly friend of my wife is losing her battle with cancer and it is sad because she was such an active family person.
Since her bones will not make make red blood cells, I assume her time is limited.
So, if you knew you only have a few weeks to live, what would you do.
I don’t know.
Would one take a vacation, or eat everything you ever wanted to eat, or go a long drunk with alcohol ?
Would one go on a spending craze ?
So far, all this person has done is arranged her funeral plans.
I have often contemplated the question of "what would you do if". My very honest answer to myself is that I would continue to live as I do. If I haven't lived as I really wanted to, a couple of weeks is not going to change my behaviour. Not a depressing thought, just content with my life.
As with Alan Rickman and David Bowie, who lived very different lifestyles but died around the same time and age of a similar form of cancer.If any! She had a similar diagnosis to my mother, who had no self-destructive habits; she had died the year before!
If I make it to my eighties or more I might give heroin a try. I'm actually semi-serious about this, figuring what the hell...!I have often contemplated the question of "what would you do if". My very honest answer to myself is that I would continue to live as I do. If I haven't lived as I really wanted to, a couple of weeks is not going to change my behaviour. Not a depressing thought, just content with my life.
Psychedelics could be interesting as well. Psych Pensioners. I’d quite like to find a liberty cap supplier now for occasional use. Haven’t done them for decades - don’t think I can be arsed to go & pick ‘em as per decades ago.If I make it to my eighties or more I might give heroin a try. I'm actually semi-serious about this, figuring what the hell...!
They always used to make me vomit, always had a good trip afterwards though, blotter LSD was always preferable thoughPsychedelics could be interesting as well. Psych Pensioners. I’d quite like to find a liberty cap supplier now for occasional use. Haven’t done them for decades - don’t think I can be arsed to go & pick ‘em as per decades ago.
FULL STORY: https://apnews.com/article/technolo...social-media-ad807323409a8a0065fcd58e3f710ecaSocial media’s 70-up ‘grandfluencers’ debunking aging myths
Joan MacDonald’s health was in shambles at age 71. She was overweight and on numerous medications with high cholesterol, rising blood pressure and kidney trouble.
Her daughter, a fitness coach, warned that she’d wind up an invalid if she didn’t turn things around. She did, hitting the gym for the first time and learning to balance her diet with the help of a brand new tool, an iPhone.
Now 75, MacDonald is a hype beast for health with a bodybuilder’s physique and 1.4 million loyal followers on Instagram.
She’s among a growing number of “grandfluencers,” folks 70 and up who have amassed substantial followings on social media with the help of decades-younger fans. ...
“It’s so rare to find someone her age being able to do all these things,” said one of her admirers, 18-year-old Marianne Zapata of Larchmont, New York. “It’s just such a positive thing to even think about.”
Both aspirational and inspirational, older influencers are turning their digital platforms into gold.
MacDonald has paid partnerships with the sportswear and supplement brand Women’s Best, and the stress-busting device Sensate. And she just launched her own health and fitness app not so many years after learning how to use digital technology herself.
On TikTok, four friends who go by @oldgays — the youngest is 65 — have 2.2 million followers, including Rihanna. They have an endorsement deal with Grindr as they delight fans with their clueless answers to pop culture questions.
Others focus on beauty and style, setting up Amazon closets with their go-to looks and putting on makeup tutorials live. Lagetta Wayne, at 78, has teens asking her to be their grandmother as she tends to her vegetables and cooks them up ... on TikTok. ...
Most people ages 50 and up use technology to stay connected to friends and family, according to a 2019 survey by AARP. ...
Just 37% of those 70 and older used social media daily in 2019, the research showed. Since coronavirus struck, older creators have expanded their horizons beyond mainstay Facebook and gotten more voracious, often driven by the growing number of feeds by people their own age, said Alison Bryant, senior vice president for AARP. ...