Flu, pneumonia and falls

From October 2018 through early May 2019, up to 61,200 people died due to flu complications, while up to 647,000 people were hospitalized, according to preliminary estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). During the 2017-2018 flu season, approximately 900,000 people were hospitalized and 80,000 people died due to flu complications. (Prevention website)

Every 19 minutes, an older adult dies from a fall. Falls are the leading cause of fatal injury and the most common cause of nonfatal trauma-related hospital admissions among older adults. 50,000/year.  Those who are hospitalized often die of pneumonia.

So let's guestimate that about 150,000 older adults die each fall/winter season from just these 3 problems, and maybe a million are hospitalized plus thousands of younger people who are also susceptible at a lower rate because they may have preexisting conditions like heart, lung, kidney problems, or do silly things like climb ladders to clean gutters. Only the family and friends care when they die--they mourn their losses and pay the bills. We cry and share stories about grandma or the neighbor who used to help us out with maintenance or walking the dog. We spend hours settling estates and packing up or distributing the earthly wealth of those we loved. We give away watches from the retirement gala, the jewelry box, and old Bibles. We personally have the gold pocket watches of both Bob's father and grandfather, we have my grandmother's hymn book from her college days in the 1890s, and my grandfather's 11th, 12th and 13th editions of Encyclopedia Britannica. We know how they died and it wasn't a pandemic, but was from common problems of aging. But we didn't close up shop, we didn't deny medical care to others for different, less fatal causes, we didn't stop having Easter services, and we didn't destroy our pensions and equity in our homes because maybe 200,000 people died of illnesses that had been with us since the people made a golden calf to worship just in case Moses got it wrong.

https://www.prevention.com/health/health-conditions/a22813625/flu-symptoms-prevention/

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/pneumonia.htm

How ill is Hillary and what is it?

Although I've never gone out in public looking like Mrs. Clinton did yesterday, if I did, it would take more than 90 minutes of "rehydration" at my daughter's home to get me up and going again. And I certainly wouldn't have hugged a little girl if I didn't know what was wrong with me. This woman just can't be trusted. With anything. With anyone. Any where.

This election season is so strange. A whole new round of speculations and theories about Hillary's health, and Trump is acting presidential and she's acting like a fishwife lugging a basketful of deplorables.

The Hillary media mavens are acting like a diagnosis of pneumonia is no big deal, but for the elderly, it is. 

https://www.cdc.gov/pneumonia/

Time to think about flu shots and pneumonia vaccine

It's been so hot (in the midwest), you've probably not thought much about flu season or pneumonia. Most of the churches and many of the large supermarkets around here are offering flu shots for older and at risk people. I know there are those who think vaccines are part of some sort of conspiracy cabal (just who this bad element conspiring to kill us with vaccines is, I'm not sure--but I think they drink the Kool-Aid with the Princess Diana conspiracy folks). With the bad news about hospital acquired infections, I would think you would want something preventative to keep you or your elderly parents out. Maybe they won't die of pneumonia, but they might acquire something else really ugly.

"Among patients hospitalized with community-acquired pneumonia, those who had previously received the pneumococcal vaccine had a lower risk of death and admission to the intensive care unit than patients who were not vaccinated, according to a report in the Oct. 8 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine 2007; 167(18):1938-1943, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Streptococcus pneumoniae, one of the causes of pneumonia--23-valent polysaccharide pneumococcal vaccine (PPV)--has been available since 1983. Most guidelines recommend PPV for those at high risk of developing pneumonia, including older adults and nursing home residents."

In this study of nearly 3,500 patients in Canada, "22 percent had been vaccinated with PPV, and 624 died or were admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU). Those who had been vaccinated with PPV were less likely to die or be admitted to the ICU than those who had not been vaccinated (10 percent vs. 21 percent). This finding was mostly a result of lower ICU admissions--less than 1 percent of those vaccinated were admitted to the ICU, compared with 13 percent of those who were not vaccinated. Results were similar when the researchers looked only at patients older than 65 or those living in nursing homes--groups for whom universal PPV vaccination is recommended." [from Newswire via JAMA ]