The very stubborn elderly

[Jocasta2018]

How on earth are we going to get the stubborn elderly to self-isolate?
I know one couple, one has had a massive stroke leading to partial paralysis 15 years ago, various TIAs since then plus a heart attack and smokes like a chimney.
The other, again a heavy smoker, gets every chest infection going round, requiring antibiotics, and has had pneumonia twice in the last 3 years.
Both are 79.
And yet they refuse to change their ways. Out every day, doing the shopping, going to the local towns, having days out.
They have children nearby that can bring them shopping.
They seem to think that if affected, they will get the sort of treatment they received when the major stroke happened 15 years ago. If treatment is going to be rationed, with their problems, I can imagine they'll be last on the list.
I don't know if it's bravado or whether they just don't understand the situation.
Any ideas or do we just let them get on with it?

"I do kind of see her point but I told her that she could maybe transfer it on to someone else and then they die so she should still be careful."

Isn't that true of all of us though, whatever age - older people aren't more likely to pass it on when out and about than younger people are? (I do absolutely see the point about healthcare though.)

I think also if you think you may only have a few months more anyway (which by the time you're in mid 80s is reasonably possble) you may think preferable to spend them out and about rather than self-isolating.

But what's the point in people self isolating for 7 days to protect the old and vulnerable, if the old people aren't prepared to do the same? But anyway, not my monkeys, not my circus. I'll have no sympathy for people who take risks and end up getting it. Just hope they don't expect treatment or take resources away from people who've tried hard to protect themselves and get it from someone who couldn't give a shit.

Happy to have made you , @alsohuman.

It's a pandemic, lots of people (mostly my age and older) will shuffle off this mortal coil. Some I will miss when they go but in words from the 1960s: live fast, die young, leave a pretty corpse. My contemporaries and friends are of an age where death is not abnormal and a dear friend is gravely ill as I write this. Sadly my corpse ain't as pretty as it would have been, but I have done my damnedest --- and yoga, Pilates walking and running to make it the best I can.

Just hope they don't expect treatment or take resources away from people who've tried hard to protect themselves and get it from someone who couldn't give a shit

I don’t think there’s much danger of that, it’s been made pretty plain we’ll be bottom of the heap when it comes to treatment. I agree with that and have made my peace with it, hence not wanting hospital care.

As an old gimmer, I really believe the health services should draw a solid line on an age limit, and treat younger people to their full extent of medical knowledge, but provide palliative care only to anyone over 70.

I thought it was just me having these issues! I just cannot get through to my parents. I think my mum kind of understands the seriousness but my dad insists on carrying on as normal, out and about etc. I was getting angry because I think mum would isolate but doesn’t get the choice when dad won’t. I feel as though it’s ok making his own decisions but it’s not fair to take her down with him.

I am currently self isolating as I had a temperature last week and now have a cough. I FaceTimed mum who said “well you look alright” and couldn’t seem to grasp that a) it’s a slow virus and b) it’s very unusual for me to ever run a temperature, let alone develop a cough for no apparent reason. Then only an hour later I get a text asking if I want to go somewhere with dad. No! I literally just said I have to self isolate! My sibling is round there with young children and that’s making me cross too.

Mind you, they are in their 80s and maybe at their age I’d rather the last part of my life was spent as normal, seeing family and living as normal. I’m early 50s and desperately worried over all this - I want to see at least the next thirty years with my children! But maybe that is less urgent when you’re over 80. This thread has been helpful in seeing that.

The most useful and valuable outcome of Covid-19 might be that it forces the medical establishment to rank treatment priority. Obviously children should come first. Anyone over 85 gets antibiotics and palliative care; a 50 year old heart attack case, in reasonable health. pull out all the stops; a young mother, likewise. Between 55-65 I think it's a more nuanced call.

If you look on the Elderly parents board all this kind of stuff is really common.

This pandemic will cost a lot of young and middle aged people money and jobs. They will live with the effects.

Why? To help the selfish fuckers described on this thread.

Old and vulnerable? Stay in please.

I think they do that anyway Xing.

Dhs grandad visited this morning. He complained that his gp has cancelled next week's non urgent appointment. Despite being told to stay indoors he will go to the surgery Monday in person to complain. He will demand to be seen.

He has been told to wash his hands frequently. He said he won't as (does jazz hands) do they look dirty? He washes them twice a day, in the morning and before bed and that's enough. (sick emoji needed)

Anyway he says he doesn't go anywhere. What has he done this week? Spent a whole day at the hospital for a minor issue that did not need A&E. Visited a friend in a care home. And daily buys the paper from the shop.

He is so entitled he doesn't believe he could ever be a non priority.

Stupid ass.

My DPIL have been very clear that if we think we're keeping their DGC away, they can think again. I respect that. They have the right to make their own decisions about how they spend it, and as PP have said, for many people if they stop doing their usual activities they may well never be able to start again.

Speaking very personally, at 63, I have two living, but long divorced, parents in their 80s.

One remarrried and had a second family: we're polite but not at all close, so second family would have the responsibility of making the choices. I am happy to go along with any choice/decision they make. My half-sibs are in control.

For the parent I am close to, I understand the preference to go quickly if the alternative is high need caring. (Qualified degree level nurse, she has seen what happens, and doesn't want to experience it.)

The same is true of DMIL, who has written do not resuscitate over every document she has signed in the last 10 years. With dementia and osteo and heart issues (having also been a nurse), she understands that there is a time to die, for everyone, and that stretching it out, without hope of recovery, or a better future, is wasting precious and limited resources. I think it's courage and kindness towards the future.

My in-laws are being super cautious, but my Mum is a total stalwart and it’s business as usual for her - whatever we say.

I am living a quiet private life at the moment, and fearing having to do the gardening. Our garden is steep and rocky before you all tell me I should be getting on with it!

www.itv.com/news/2020-03-14/elderly-to-be-quarantined-for-four-months-in-wartime-style-mobilisation-to-combat-coronavirus/

Elderly to be ordered to remain indoors for 16 weeks to combat coronavirus, it has been revealed.

Good luck trying to enforce that amongst this selfish generation. They've spent so long telling us how tough they are and how the young are just snowflakes, but the comments from the oldies on this piece are all hysterical about the prospect of having to make some changes to their way of life for a few months, even to save their own lives

Father in law was a life long smoker, gave it up after a stroke last year, on Warfarin, prone to chest infections. He refuses to stay at home, still thinks he’s 30 years old inside, and was gutted that the Championship football league has stopped playing for now, because going to footy was the highlight of his week. He’s 72.(we are relieved)

DFather has prostate cancer, a large aortic aneurysm, and a faulty heart valve. On the list for open heart surgery. Got a message from him last week saying he’d been to Homebase in Town buying paint and got lucky finding loo roll at the same time. Whilst I find this funny, I will he’d stay in the village away from the Big Shops. He’s 73. My mum says he won’t be told.

But are we telling them to curb their freedom for their sakes or ours? I suspect ours. Of course I don’t want my dad or father in law to die. But I get the impression they don’t give a toss. Their lives, and they ‘ll go out with a bang. Literally in my Dad’s case, if that aneurysm pops. (Sorry, dark humour.)

If you can’t see that we’re not particularly interested in “saving our own lives” Loopy, you’re not very bright. Why don’t you just piss off and stop being a goady fucker?

And don’t start playing the “such language at your age” card.

Their lives, and they ‘ll go out with a bang

The annoying thing is that they won't. Most older people with comorbidities will not just suddenly pass away in their sleep with COVID-19. They will come into hospital with what seems like a mild pneumonia at first, gradually deteriorate into multiple organ failure, before eventually dying on average 3-4 weeks later - all the while taking up a bed and medical resources that could have been used for a healthier patient who would have had more chance of surviving.

In Italy out of 21 thousand cases only around 2 thousand have come to a resolution (dead or recovered). The rest are still lingering on. Once health services are overwhelmed we won't be able to sustain that

One of the stupidest stories I have ever read. Old people in good health are not going to spread Covid-19 anymore than anyone else, and much less than the 30-something high flying executive who HAS to travel on essential business. Four months without social contact or exercise is as, or more, likely to kill old people than to save the younger people, who are at lower risk and have better recovery chances.

I'm trying - and failing - to get through to my husband that it is not worth risking your life to go and get a sodding newspaper every morning! You can read it online FFS if it's that important. We have a treadmill for exercise and a garden for fresh air. He's mid-70's with health conditions which mean he may well die if he gets coronavirus.

He said to me today "Look! No one in East Sussex (where we live) has got it. There's no risk in going to the shop" I pointed out that since anyone who thinks they have it are being told NOT to phone 111 or their GP, nor is there any testing, there isn't a single person who knows how many people have coronavirus in East Sussex or anywhere else in the UK! There could be loads of people infected in this area. No one can possibly know.

Also, as the virus survives 3 hours in the air and 3 days on hard surfaces, even if you're in an empty shop you could be exposed and infected before you can get home to wash your hands.
This is precisely why medical professionals in other countries are worried about how it is being dealt with here and think that people at high risk should self-isolate as a protective measure. I feel as if I'm living in an apocalyptic film about a global pandemic in 2020 in which people who might otherwise survive are dying because they take unnecessary and stupid risks. Only this is real. It's happening.

@Loppy10. which was why I wrote earlier that doctors need an age threshold to decide which cases are priorities. It's not my generation that I would prioritize.

A lot of elderly bashing in this thread. For me the elderly were my grandparents who lived full lives and gave me and my brother so much. Why be so bitter about people just because they have lived a lot of years? And to be honest if we included elderly people a bit more in this society maybe a few of them wouldn’t feel they had to throw their weight around to get heard.

At the age is there any point being careful? Love longer but being miserable, no quality of life, not able to do the things you find joy in.

My DHs grandpa is a worry. He is 87 and has angina and gets chest infections a lot. He sounds out of breath when talking normally.
We were chatting about corona and he was saying how itll take out the 'old and weak'.
We had to tell him HE was probably vulnerable to it and he just wouldnt have it.