If someone is 96yrs old has a heart attack what would you make of this?

[VladmirsPoutine]

So a 96yr old man has a heart attack. Most mornings he has bacon/eggs etc fried in oil. Would your position be to cut down on the oily foods because they aren't very healthy for anyone at that rate let alone a near centenarian but would your view be well you're 96 so if you fancy also breaking out a crack-pipe have at it!!!

Just curious as I'm not sure where I stand on this and I do have a stake in this particular battle.

My mum's just started smoking again after 15 years following the loss of my dad after an extremely difficult 2.5 years of ill health.

She's 82, has already had one (minor) heart attack and is due to have more stents fitted next month.

I haven't got it in me to argue with her tbh.

I've spent a long time in care services. Hundreds of elderly people and its taught me two things.

Capacity for decisions should always be respected unless its very clear they don't understand .... there is a reason Capacity laws defend the difference between unwise and unsafe.

The one thing I am terrified of is someone taking choice away from me without good reason (as in if I felt like bungee jumping at 96) Its the last bastion of individuality. (Not suggesting you are at all OP but I have spent years seeing family members insist on things like healthy eating when the person just wants to drink a guiness , eat a pork pie and enjoy themselves ....again not you OP ).

Secondly...eat the cake , drink the booze sat in your chair in the care home , eat the damn bacon. At a certain point its better to go out happy than it is to extend for a couple of years miserable.

The happiest service users I met were the ones that had enthusiastically hit the fuck it button. If ever there is a time in my life I'm going for enjoyment it will be in my nineties and yes I might go earlier than I could have but damn I'll be sliding in half cut, with a stomach full of deliciousness waving a klaxon around my head.

Assuming he can still make his own choices let him enjoy want he wants.

Has a dietician suggested avoiding fried breakfasts? IME with this age group they tend to recommend "anything they will enjoy, whatever it is" unless there is a specific digestive problem to manage.

Enjoy whatever he wants, hearts don’t stay strong forever.

My 95 year old mother has a large, buttery croissant with copious amounts of jam every breakfast. She did, til a year or so ago intersperse it with a Staffordshire oatcake, but has decided she much prefers the croissant. Then, if the mood takes her she walks 10 minutes to the local bakery for a warm sausage roll. She does still eat plenty of fruit, some veg and cooks for herself most nights. She also completes The Times’ crossword most days, though macular degeneration is doing its best to fuck up that pleasure.

She was a brilliant cook, and we ate a very varied diet growing up, but she now realises, as her appetite has dwindled she needs calories. And TBH I can’t see anyone daring to tell her to jettison the croissant and sausage roll.

Past 80-85, anything that brings happiness is a good thing.
Looking after yourself when young to middle aged is important to avoid or defer poor health, but by the 80s or 90s, you're not going to make much of a difference compared to how you lived in the earlier decades.

Appetite often dwindles with age and general physical wastage, so calorie dense foods are more useful for maintaining health.

No one is immortal. Best to enjoy ourselves while we're here.

Even with competence, unless a food will cause an immediate, extreme reaction, I can't see many circumstances where it's best to deny a pleasurable food.

Crack Pipe !

It's entirely up to him

At 96 let him have it.

96 years old is not the time to start a healthy lifestyle.

I'm changing my diet for now, eating more healthily and working to lose some weight. But I'm 52, an age when a better diet will yield results.

At 96, I'd say let your chap have his bacon and eggs. And the crack pipe 😁

Pretty unanimous. Fry ups it is!

Cook what he wants. Cutting out bacon now won't change a thing.

My Dad is like this. He's almost 80 and very overweight. He eats pies, pasties, bacon, sweeties, chocolate, and lots of alcohol. He has been like this for as long as I can remember. When he was 40, I could see the point of trying to get him to change (which we did), but now, at 79, what on earth is the point?

If its possible to change the method of cooking to use less of a healthier oil (eg a non stick pan and some olive oil at a lower temperature (latter so the unsaturated fats chains aren't broken to reform into saturated fats at high temps...) and maybe grill the bacon or fry that in a separate non-stick pan with no fat (if you start with a cold pan that works well) but draining off whatever comes out of the bacon itself), I would try that.

But at 96 years old, they have already had a longer life than many. So I wouldn't (personally) deprive them if they are aware of the potential it has for further harm but they would still like to continue their daily habits. Particularly if, at 96, it is a daily breakfast that they are making for themselves. I would probably gently encourage trying new things, like maybe a poached rather than fried egg, or turkey rasher rather than bacon, making sure it was brown bread for the toast alongside etc. Maybe if the grill is already on, a half tomato grilled could be added (cooked tomatoes have lycopene, which is good for heart health), that sort of thing - but not utterly changing everything they are used to.

But I also wouldn't push it if the 96 year old themselves is not open to changing it. Especially if they are still of sound mind and can make their own decisions competently.

Team crackpipe here too.

And FWIW I'm a boringingly healthy 40 something who wants to make it to my 90's. I'm not the live, laugh, love type.

At 96 I'd say he's earned the right to eat what he wants.

@onceuponamidnightbeery.
You can indeed. (So I've heard).
😉🤣😂😇🤫

His choice.

@VladmirsPoutine

Pretty unanimous. Fry ups it is!

Yay!! Wishing him and you many more happy fry-ups together! 😍❤️

Pretty unanimous. Fry ups it is!

Just the fry-ups or are we going fit the crack pipe as well?

Team crackpipe here though.
I work in elderly care and had a 98 year old lady told by her GP to eat more veg and wholemeal bread.
Thankfully she gave him the metaphorical two fingers and carried on as she was.
There are far too many elderly folk with relatives trying to tell them what to do IMHO.

Yup #crackpipe all the way

I'm team crack pipe! Go with a bang and at 96 he has earned it.

I’m disabled, not 96, sometimes dependent on others. When others override my choices and decisions, because they’ve decided if I can’t do something that makes them ‘in charge of me,’ the resulting internalized rage I have to swallow, is a far greater threat to my health, than anything I’m trying to choose!

Whatever the arrangement is that has you making breakfast, chuck away any idea that doing it for him because he can’t, gives you any right to interfere with his choices, and enjoy a positive relationship. #team crackpipe/ independence/ quality of life.

88 year old MIL has barely any appetite, which is a worry in itself.
At 96, he’s earned his bacon and eggs. Cook them in light olive oil, good for the heart.