Summary of geriatric disease prevention publicity activities

This geriatric disease prevention publicity campaign, carried out by Xingguang Community of Chunguang Street in conjunction with the district health service center, has covered a total of 217 resident elderly people over 60 years old, and 47 people at high risk of undiagnosed hypertension and hyperglycemia were screened on-site. The activity participation satisfaction was 92%. However, there are three core problems that need to be optimized: incomplete coverage of key groups, insufficient adaptability of educational content, and low family participation.

The event was held in a small community square last Saturday. We originally prepared 200 promotional leaflets, but they were all taken out in less than an hour - completely different from the previous expectation that "elderly people only come to receive free eggs". Many people came with questions that they had been saving for a long time. The 71-year-old Aunt Zhang Guiying held the crumpled medical record book and asked the nurse for almost 20 minutes: She usually dared not eat sweets or touch meat, and her blood pressure was still high and low. At the end of the conversation, she discovered that she drank a large bowl of millet porridge with red dates every morning. She had never heard of the knowledge point "hidden sugar exceeds the standard" before. Also, Uncle Li, who always said before that "dizziness is normal in old age", after having his blood pressure measured on the spot was high, he followed the doctor's instructions and had a brain CT. Yesterday, he came to the community specifically to say that he was found to have a slight intracranial infarction. Fortunately, he discovered it early and didn't cause any serious problems, so he focused on this matter. This event was not in vain.

To be honest, we deliberately did not engage in "one size fits all" education this time. The opinions of the two experts we invited were very different. We simply put the discussion directly on the table: Director Wang from the Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine advocated "paying close attention" to the prevention of geriatric diseases, especially the elderly with underlying diseases. The intake of salt, sugar and oil should be accurate, and the duration of moderate-intensity exercise should not be less than 150 minutes per week, so as not to put additional burden on the blood vessels.； Dr. Li from the Western Hospital thinks there is no need to be too dogmatic, "The old man has been eating pickles all his life, and you suddenly tell him to stop eating. He will not be happy eating every day, but it will easily cause cardiovascular and cerebrovascular problems. Eat one or two bites a day, and put less salt in other dishes. You can't lose the joy of life just for the sake of targets." The old people in the audience nodded as they listened, saying that unlike the previous lectures where they only said "this can't be eaten and that can't be touched", this time what they said were real words that could be implemented.

Of course there are a lot of pitfalls. The folded pages printed at the beginning used small 4-size fonts. Many elderly people wore reading glasses and had to bring them up to their noses to see clearly. We temporarily found a nearby printing shop and printed core knowledge points such as "Eat no more than one beer can of salt a day" and "Don't stop taking antihypertensive medicine casually" into large A3 posters and posted them around the square. We also found three volunteers who could speak the local dialect to give one-on-one lectures to the elderly who could not understand Mandarin. The effect was much better than a large lecture given by an expert. Later, we found out that out of the 29 elderly households in the community who live alone and have difficulty with their legs and feet, only 5 came this time. The rest either couldn't get downstairs or didn't know about this event at all. We later organized volunteers to deliver information to take blood pressure tests at door-to-door, and there were 3 households who lived with their children all year round and never met anyone.

What’s even more worth pondering is that there were basically no people under the age of 50 in the audience. An old man complained to us: "I know I should eat less salt, but my daughter-in-law likes to add soy sauce when cooking. I can't just open the fire alone, right?" ”This is absolutely true. The eating habits of the elderly mostly follow those of their juniors. If we just instill prevention knowledge into the elderly, but the juniors do not have this awareness, the effect will naturally be reduced.

In the past, I always thought that when conducting publicity activities, the task would be completed if the knowledge points were conveyed well and enough people were covered. After completing the course this time, I realized that the prevention of geriatric diseases has never been something that can only be accomplished by giving "classes" to the elderly. Next time we do it, we plan to make a list of elderly people with limited mobility in advance. Those who can be picked up will be picked up, and those who cannot be picked up will be scheduled to come to the door in advance to preach. We will also add a 20-minute special session for family members. Even if there are few people coming, if we can persuade a junior to add less salt in cooking and take more blood pressure tests for the elderly, the work is not in vain.