NHS England, in partnership with Age UK, Public Health England, and the Chief Fire Officer’s Association and older people themselves, has published a Practical Guide to Healthy Ageing.
The guide helps people to stay physically and mentally well by providing hints and tips on how to keep fit and independent. It recognises, as we all should, that there is always something we can do to improve our health and well-being. For older people who may be starting to find things more difficult to do, it is particularly important to take active steps to slow down or reverse some of the health challenges we are all likely to face.
To help people understand their potential risk of living with frailty, the guide includes a simple, walking speed test. Taking more than five seconds to cover a distance of four metres is highly indicative of frailty, with the proviso that there is no obvious alternative reason for walking slowly such as a previous stroke or knee/hip arthritis. This is not meant to be a diagnosis, but it can provide a good indication that someone should consider making changes to their daily lives so that they can better manage their frailty or reduce the chance of it becoming more serious.
NHS England’s Healthy Aging Guide aims to support people to stay physically and mentally well by providing hints and tips on how to keep fit and independent. They currently have around 60,000 copies of the guide in storage and are very keen to make sure that they move these remaining copies into the community.
Anyone wishing to receive a copy can contact Shropshire Disability Network as we can get copies for you. Email admin@shropshire-disability.net or call 07780 852229. With your permission we can ask that a copy is sent to you.All costs for distribution of the guides will be covered by NHSE Clinical Policy Team and they will manage the distribution process of sending out the guides to the relevant addresses.
There is no limit on numbers ordered by us. Once these remaining copies have been circulated NHS England will no longer have any hard copies in storage and they will be download only
You can click here to download a copy: hlthy-ageing-brochr