Smoking numbers hit new low as Britons turn to vaping to help quit cigarettes

The number of smokers in Britain has reached its lowest point since records began in 1974, according to new data, while more than a million people say they are using e-cigarettes to help them quit smoking.

The latest data from the Office for National Statistics shows that 17.2% of adults in the UK smoked in 2015, down from 20.1% in 2010.

Smoking levels are highest in Scotland, at 19.1%, followed by Northern Ireland, where it is 19%, Wales on 18.1% and England on 16.9%. The numbers have been dropping fastest in recent years in Scotland and Wales. Among local authorities, Blackpool is the only one to feature consistently in the 10 heaviest smoking areas between 2012 and 2015. In 2015, 25.3% of adults in Blackpool smoked.

Smoking by country

The data also shows that 2.3 million people were e-cigarette users in England, Scotland and Wales in 2015, about 4% of the population. Their survey also shows that 4 million more people describe themselves as former e-cigarette users. A further 2.6 million say they have tried them but not gone on to use them regularly.

Half of the 2.3 million who were current users of e-cigarettes at the time of the survey said they were doing it to quit smoking. A further 22% said they were vaping because it was less harmful than smoking. Only 10% said they chose to vape because it was cheaper than buying cigarettes. Others – 9% – said they used e-cigarettes mainly because they were permitted indoors.

The figures will bolster the arguments of those who believe e-cigarettes have a major role to play in ending the tobacco epidemic. The issue has been hugely controversial among public health doctors and campaigners, some of whom consider e-cigarettes to be a stalking horse for the tobacco industry which hopes to make smoking acceptable again and has invested in vaping.

e-cigarette users

The World Health Organisation has expressed concern over e-cigarettes, but Public Health England has said vaping may be 95% safer than smoking tobacco.

Half of current smokers say they have tried e-cigarettes, and 14.4% of current smokers also vape.

Some of the statistics suggest that it is often the heavier smokers who turn to e-cigarettes. Those who also vape smoke marginally more cigarettes per day on average than those who do not – 11.8 versus 11.3. Smokers who have given up on e-cigarettes smoke 12.2 per day versus 10.6 among those who have never used an e-cigarette. Smokers who have children at home are also more inclined to use e-cigarettes.

The ONS vaping data is from the opinions and lifestyle survey 2014-15 and relate just to Great Britain. The ONS figures on general smoking trends include northern Ireland.

smoking graphic

Men are more likely to smoke – 19.3% do, compared with 15.3% of women. Smoking is most common in the 25-34 age group, where 23% smoked in 2015. It is least common in the over-65s, among whom 8.8% smoke. But the biggest decline since 2010 has been among the 18-24 year-olds, where it has dropped five percentage points to 20.7% in five years.

Figures for Great Britain also show that smokers have been cutting back on the numbers of cigarettes they consume. Average consumption is down to 11.3 cigarettes per day, the lowest number since 1974.

Deborah Arnott, chief executive of ASH said: “The decline in smoking is very encouraging and shows that strong tobacco control measures are working. However, the government can’t leave it to individual smokers to try to quit on their own. If the downward trend is to continue we urgently need a new tobacco control plan for England, and proper funding for public health and for mass media campaigns. That’s essential if the prime minister is to live up to her promise to tackle health and social inequality.”

Smoking numbers hit new low as Britons turn to vaping to help quit cigarettes

Turn Your Grey Hair Back To Natural Color With These Natural Remedies

Grey hair is normally associated with old age, though it can also be seen in young people. The aging of skin and greying of hair are the two most evident signs of aging. It occurs when melanocytes around the hair follicle reduces the amount of melanin it produces (or stops completely). Here are a few home remedies to battle greying hair.

7 Effective Natural Remedies for Premature Gray Hair

Curry Leaves

Curry leaves help increase darker pigmentation in your hair. When combined with coconut oil, it works as a great hair tonic. Just boil a handful of fresh curry leaves in a tablespoon of coconut oil until they become charred. Strain the oil. Massage it into your hair. Leave it on for 30 to 45 minutes before rinsing it out.

Coconut Oil

The well-known medication for various skin problems, coconut oil, also helps in preventing the growth of grey hair. Massage coconut oil and lemon juice on the scalp to get black and shiny hair.

Rosemary and Sage

Both these herbs help cover the gray by darkening your hair color naturally. Boil one-half cup each of dried rosemary and sage in two cups of water. Let it sit for a couple of hours. Strain the solution. Use it as a hair rinse after shampooing. Leave it on for 15 to 20 minutes before rinsing it out.

Mustard Oil

Take 250 grams of mustard oil and boil it with 60 grams of henna leaves, till it entirely burns in the mustard oil. Apply this infusion in your hair to get black and shiny hair.

Gooseberry

Indian gooseberry is often considered as an effective natural remedy for premature graying. For using, cut gooseberry into pieces and dry them in the sun. Grind the dried gooseberry pieces into powdered form and mix with coconut oil. Apply this mixture in the scalp regularly for treatment of graying hair.

Dye your Hair with Coffee

Coffee is one of the common natural methods of coloring hair. Although it does not give permanent results, it also benefits your hair by strengthening it and supplies it with beneficial nutrients. It is a simple way of boosting your hair color and giving it a vibrant dark brown.

Biotin

Consume foodstuff rich in biotin as it slows down the progression of grey hair, naturally. Foods rich in biotin are egg yolks, tomatoes, yeast, soybeans, walnuts, carrots, cow’s milk, goat’s milk, cucumbers, oats, and almonds.

Sources:

1) http://www.naturallivingideas.com

2) http://homeremedyshop.com

3) http://www.top10homeremedies.com

Turn Your Grey Hair Back To Natural Color With These Natural Remedies

Lib Dems will turn NHS into National Health and Care Service, says Farron

Tim Farron will tell the Liberal Democrat conference that the party would rebrand the NHS to include a fully taxpayer-funded care service, warning that governments must be honest about raising taxes to ease the healthcare crisis.

In his leader’s speech in Brighton on Tuesday, Farron will say the party needs to be honest about the costs of making social care fully government-funded.

“If the only way to fund a health service that meets the needs of everyone is to raise taxes, Liberal Democrats will raise taxes,” he will say, promising to campaign to transform the NHS into the National Health and Care Service.

“For years, politicians have chosen to paper over the cracks rather than come clean about what it will really take – what it will really cost – not just to keep the NHS afloat but to give people the care and the treatment that they deserve.

“If the great Liberal William Beveridge [1879-1963] had written his blueprint today, when people are living to the ages they are now, there is no doubt he would have proposed a National Health and Care Service.”

The party insists it believes there is enough affection for the NHS for British people to feel positive about paying more taxes, not normally seen as an election-winning strategy.

The Lib Dem leader will talk about his own grandfather’s Alzheimer’s disease, saying the first home he was put in was “despicable”.

“I’ve seen enough terrible old people’s homes,” he will say. “It’s not civilised to let people slip through the net. It’s not civilised towards the people who love those people, who go out of their way to try and make their lives easier when everything else is making their lives harder. It’s not civilised and it’s not good enough.”

Earlier in the week Lib Dem health spokesman Norman Lamb told the conference the government should consider moulding national insurance into a ringfenced NHS and social care tax, to make it easier to increase the amount paid with public support.

An expert panel – which the party will call its Beveridge commission – will report back to the party in six months on the costs, but Lamb suggested the tax could mean an increase of a “an extra penny in the pound”.

Farron will say the Lib Dems “will not join the ranks of those politicians who are too scared of losing votes to face up to what really needs to be done”.

“We will go to the British people with the results of our Beveridge commission and we will offer a new deal for health and social care, honest about the cost, bold about the solution.”

Earlier on Monday, Lamb announced cross-party support for a commission into the NHS funding crisis, backed by Labour MP and former leadership contender Liz Kendall, and Tory MP Dan Poulter, a former gynaecologist.

Speaking to the Lib Dem conference in Brighton, Kendall said it would be politically difficult to dedicate a new tax to the NHS. “It’s very tough for anybody in any party to say any tax should go up,” she said.

“That’s the reality, however passionately we might think this is the right solution, but certainly when Labour was in government and we did the penny on NI [national insurance] for the NHS, it was a semi-hypothecation to say it’s going to go on this specifically. It’s an important option.”

Lib Dems will turn NHS into National Health and Care Service, says Farron

Wheatgrass Literally Can Turn Gray Hair Back to its Natural Colour & Slows Down Aging

Wheatgrass Literally Can Turn Gray Hair Back to its Natural Colour & Slows Down Aging

PrEP HIV drugs: fight for limited NHS funds takes unedifying turn

The fight in the courts over who should pay for drugs to protect against HIV infection has taken an unedifying turn. There have been allegations that gay men will become more promiscuous if NHS England pays for the pills as a result of the high court ruling and that children with cystic fibrosis will be deprived of a drug that could help them breathe.

The issues are as emotive as they could be, just as they have always been over the battles for access to new cancer drugs that might give women with young children a few more weeks of life. But the problem is exactly the same one. Hard decisions have to be taken as long as the NHS has a limited pot of money to spend.

The high court action was brought by the National Aids Trust because NHS England was trying to hand the bill for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) drugs – taken in successful trials by gay men to protect themselves against HIV infection during sex – to the local authorities, who were given responsibility for public health. The local authorities, also responsible for tackling obesity, alcohol and smoking, said they did not have the cash.

NHS England lost. Although it intends to appeal, it has set out its plans for what it will do if the appeal fails. That will involve incredibly difficult decisions. PrEP will have to come out of the specialist commissioning budget, which is £15.6bn in 2016/17. There are 146 different services competing for that pot of money, ranging, the court heard, from renal dialysis and secure in-patient mental health services, through to treatment for rare cancers and life-threatening genetic disorders – as well as a drug for children with cystic fibrosis.

NHS England has prioritised some of these services into levels 1 and 2. Those will go ahead, come what may, it said after the judgment. But decisions on levels 3 and 4 have been postponed until after the appeal. If NHS England loses, it must then decide which services to fund – and it still may not include PrEP.

Simon Stevens, the head of NHS England, flagged up the problem to the health select committee in June. “PrEP has great potential and all of us would like to see it more widely available in this country,” he said.

But Truvada, the drug used in the trials, has not yet been assessed for cost-effectiveness, although the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) has been asked to look at it.

But, Stevens went on: “This particular drug is not yet licensed for prophylactic treatment for HIV.

“Frankly, the prices that the manufacturer is seeking to charge probably also need to take a substantial haircut to represent value.”

Truvada is a drug that has been used in treating HIV infection for years and was licensed in 2005. But in the two months since Stevens spoke, Gilead, the manufacturer, has received approval from the European Medicines Agency to change and extend its licence for PrEP use. That will be rubber-stamped by the European commission in six to eight weeks. When that happens, it can charge what it thinks the market will bear and nobody will be able to make a cheaper copy until the new patent expires – and that could be a decade or two.

The cost at the moment is about £400 a month, or £4,800 a year for each person treated. The NAT and other Aids campaigners rightly argue that is low compared with the estimated average of £360,000 over a lifetime for treating somebody with HIV. There are about 103,700 people with HIV in the UK. The numbers of gay men becoming infected in the UK hit a record high of 2,800 in 2014, which is about eight every day. NAT told the court that is accruing £2.88m in extra costs to the NHS daily. In that context, PrEP looks very cost-effective.

But for NHS England it is a case of finding the money. There are thought to be 10,000 to 15,000 people considered to be at high risk of infection because they have multiple partners and sometimes do not use condoms.

Interestingly, NHS England intends to go on the offensive. It says it will call in the manufacturers of the various drugs competing for funds – including Gilead – and ask for a “best and final” price. Just possibly some of the companies will take a cut in their profits rather than lose sales. And just maybe this will lead to the naming and shaming of drug companies – holding them responsible for the men at risk of HIV and the children who cannot breathe, rather than the NHS.

PrEP HIV drugs: fight for limited NHS funds takes unedifying turn

Male mid life crisis: How not to turn into "Reggie Perrin"

Some thing unusual takes place to males in middle age. Not all guys. Numerous sail serenely by way of middle age with no troubles at all. That is fine. I’m really pleased for them. Couldn’t be much more thrilled. Really. For the rest of us, middle age is a more turbulent sea. The German term for ‘mid-existence crisis’ isTorschlusspanik – ‘shut-door-panic’. And lots of guys in their forties and fifties feel that the door has closed.

The ageing process doesn’t aid. Aches and pains employed to disappear speedily, now they hang close to for months. Hair no longer grows on the head, you can not cease it expanding out of your ears. You can not sit down, stand up, or pick up any object without emitting an accompanying grunt. But it is not the age, it is the nervousness individuals ‘dark nights of the soul’, staring at the ceiling, pondering the ultimate query of middle age: ‘Is that it?’

The ubiquity of these emotions is why David Nobbs, who died this week, was capable to develop such an enduring character in Reggie Perrin, the corporate man trapped in a meaningless lifestyle. “One day I’ll die,” says Reggie, throughout a seminar on instantaneous puddings, “and on my grave it will say: ‘Here lies Reginald Iolanthe Perrin. He didn’t know the names of the trees and the flowers, but he knew the rhubarb crumble income figures for Schleswig Holstein.’”

Reggie, of course, faked his very own death to break free of charge, only to locate his new life wasn’t any far better. Other men make much less drastic attempts to escape. Some get up the triathlon and wear unfeasibly tight Lycra. “I want to prove that I can even now do it,” said a marathon operating buddy. “I’m fitter than guys half my age.” Some adjust their visual appeal. The jeans develop tighter than their lycra. A tattoo seems. Then there is the sports activities car because they feel that buying anything will remedy their sadness. But they end up just as unhappy, but at a greater speed.

When the shut-door panic hits, we all look for the approaches out. Me? At the age of 54, I constructed a shed. Properly, I say ‘built’. I turned the rickety, run-down framework in the backyard of the house I share with my wife and 3 daughters into a location exactly where I could perform. As a writer this was my ‘Porsche’. All the great writers had sheds: Dylan Thomas, Roald Dahl, George Bernard Shaw. But more than that, I wanted a spot the place I could procedure all the things I was going via. And the book that emerged I named The Dark Evening of the Shed – a guide which turned out to be an exploration of men, midlife, spirituality and, of program, sheds. As my prior books are mainly about biblical historical past, this proved to be some thing of a departure, though the history of the midlife crisis goes back more than you might believe.

Some consider up triathalon and put on unfeasibly tight Lycra  Photograph: Alamy

The first recorded use of the phrase ‘middle age’ can be located in William Langland’s poem Piers Plowman. Written in 1400, a guy falls asleep and dreams of a quest to locate the purpose of life – at one point he meets ‘Imagination’, who advises him to ‘make amends in middle age ahead of your strength fails’. What could be more midlife than this? It’s about altering your life and locating a objective. And it commences with a lengthy nap.

For the initial serious analysis of the difficulties of middle age, we have to fast forward to the early twentieth century. Carl Jung – who had a important midlife breakdown of his personal – argued that lifestyle was a game of two halves. The first half is about achievement: building a job, a property, a helpful location in society. But the 2nd half is about getting to be a whole, effectively-rounded man or woman. Jung saw middle age not as a time of decline, but as vital stage in developing wholeness and maturity. A related concept lay behind the considering of the psychologist Elliot Jacques , who, in 1965, initial coined the phrase ‘mid-existence crisis’. Jacques examined the function of above 300 significant artists, just before and right after the ages of 35 to 39 and observed that the ‘hot from the fire’ creativity of their youth was replaced by a far more mature, ‘sculpted creativity’. He concluded that the transformation was caused by a ‘mid-lifestyle crisis’ or the sudden realisation that, sooner or later, you had been going to pop your clogs.

Scientific studies show that in our forties and fifties ranges of happiness and existence fulfillment dip to their lowest amounts psychological distress is at its height. Forty-5 is the most typical age for depression to be diagnosed. This is a complex situation with a lot of aspects, but in my many conversations with ‘men of a certain age’, I sensed an underlying lack of that means and goal, and a sense of getting failed in some way.

Many of them had invested their existence climbing the corporate ladder only to find out it was leaning towards the incorrect wall. At 1 occasion in which I was speaking, I met a judge. He’d invested his life striving to reach that position, only to find that, when he got there, he felt as empty as ever. Another good friend returned from a prolonged job educating overseas. He noticed a Television advert featuring guys admiring their DIY handiwork and saying, ‘I did that.’ He burst into tears: he felt there was absolutely nothing in his lifestyle of which he could say, ‘I did that.’ He was incorrect. But it did not truly feel that way.

In Arthur Miller’s perform The Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman’s son Biff cries out at his funeral, “He had the wrong dreams… He in no way knew who he was.” (Miller, by the way, wrote that perform in a shed, which he had constructed himself.) But that is the problem: several of us have the incorrect dreams. We really do not want a new Porsche, we need to have a new purpose.

As I rebuilt my shed I came to the conclusion that the issues of middle age are spiritual . I realise we live in a time when spirituality is as unfashionable as flared jeans and sideburns. But sod that. I’m middle aged. I’m allowed to be unfashionable. ‘Is that it?’ is a great question if we have the courage to really attempt and answer it.

Leonard Rossiter as Reginald Perrin  Photo: BBC

Midlife is a time when we must have the self-assurance to be trustworthy with ourselves. But it is up to you. You can remain a grumpy old git, a simmering mass of sadness and anger and reduction. You can blame the entire factor on other men and women and run away to repeat the entire procedure with an individual new. Or you can uncover a new that means and purpose.

For me, I’ve knowledgeable a deepening of my faith. I had grow to be a variety of Reggie Perrin Christian – faithfully attending the business meetings, but increasingly thinking, ‘Is that it?’ and longing for anything deeper – a mid-faith crisis, if you like. The shed grew to become a cell, a sanctuary – a variety of residence-made chapel in which I go most mornings for a time of quiet contemplation. To know that I am loved, that my daily life issues, and that I have a function puts all the anxieties of midlife into their proper viewpoint.

As the Psalmist says, ‘Even however I walk by way of the valley of the shadow of the death, I will concern no evil. Since I’ve got a really excellent shed.’

Or something like that.

Dark Evening of the Shed by Nick Page is published by Hodder &amp Stoughton priced £14.99. To buy your copy for £12.99 plus p&ampp phone 0844 871 1514 or visit books.telegraph.co.united kingdom

Mid-existence crisis: The great information

You are quick, but in a different way.

Our reactions slow with age. But speed is over-rated. Cognitive tests involving verbal expertise, spatial perception, mathematics, reasoning and preparing, present that our brains are actually greater in middle age. Mathematical skills peak close to forty, verbal abilities close to 60. In your face, reflexes!

Experience can’t be purchased

Older people merely know more than younger men and women. We know how to do issues right – primarily from a lifetime of doing issues wrong. Age doesn’t grant automatic wisdom – I have met many extremely old, really stupid individuals – but at least we’ve been there, completed that and developed the shed.

You know who you are

My younger friends speak about the pressure of worrying what other men and women consider of you. But the older you get you realise (a) they almost certainly really don’t think that and (b) they are most likely not pondering about you anyway.

You are thankful

There is a good deal to be explained for ‘counting your blessings’. And with age comes knowledge, some instances horrible experiences which you can be thankful aren’t yours. You are not living in a war zone, you almost certainly have enough to eat and a roof over your heads Fantastic British Bake Off is on Tv. All motives to be cheerful.

You aren’t afraid to be alone.

Lives are noisy. We are assaulted by media, and trapped by the to-do checklist. When you are older you value quietness and solitude. You know this is what will refresh and renew you.

Male mid life crisis: How not to turn into "Reggie Perrin"

The new tooth decay treatment that could see fillings turn out to be an unpleasant memory

Professor Nigel Pitts, from King’s University London’s Dental Institute, stated: “The way we treat teeth right now is not ideal.

“When we repair a tooth by putting in a filling, that tooth enters a cycle of drilling and re-filling as, in the end, every ‘repair’ fails.

“Not only is our gadget kinder to the patient and much better for their teeth, but it truly is anticipated to be at least as expense-powerful as existing dental treatments.

“Along with fighting tooth decay, our device can also be utilized to whiten teeth.”

A Scottish organization is now making an attempt to find private investment to create the technique.

Reminova Ltd, based in Perth, Scotland, hopes EAER could be accessible within 3 many years if appropriate funding is identified.

The organization has been established from the King’s School London Dental Innovation and Translation Centre which was set up in January to use technologies and flip them into business products and providers.

The method is the second to be developed in current months that could aid end the ache of root canal surgical treatment.

Last month researchers from the US government’s dental analysis crew identified a blast of extreme light from a laser beam activated a chemical in the mouth which “woke up” stem cells inside of the tooth.

The stem cells then formed new dentine, the difficult core of the tooth that can very easily rot away, around twelve weeks later.

Just 5 minutes below a laser was sufficient to kick-commence the healing procedure within the mouth, researchers discovered.

The new tooth decay treatment that could see fillings turn out to be an unpleasant memory

Jeffrey Archer: "You turn out to be a infant again" following battling cancer

Mr Archer, a former deputy chairman of the Conservative party, extra for a week soon after the operation, which was completed last year, he “became a baby again”.

Explaining in detail the “extremely painful” actuality of residing with a catheter, he said: “The subsequent seven days were the worst.

“This is the period when the tube [which is inserted into a patient’s penis] and bag remain in spot, and have to be drained each and every two to 3 hours.

“During the week, you really don’t really feel like consuming but you have to drink tons of water, which only helps to fill up the bag and adds to your discomfort.”

He continued: “You turn out to be a baby again and [later] require to wear a large nappy to make positive that if you cannot get to the loo in time you will not water the carpet and almost everything else on the way.

“And just like a youngster, you have to understand to management by yourself.”

The graphic account comes almost three years soon after his wife, Mary, provided a similarly total account of her battle with bladder cancer.

Speaking about her very own surgical procedure then, the 69-12 months-old explained: “It is a highly sophisticated plumbing job. I had to wait for the joins to heal and they then examined it for leaks.

“It is a formidable operation for the surgeon, allow alone the patient.”

Her husband concluded his account of his 6 week recovery from the operation by advising any man more than the age of 50 to undergo a prostate examination.

He extra: “I have joined Men United and am proud to support Prostate Cancer United kingdom, because if I die ahead of the age of 88, the diagnosis won’t be prostate cancer.”

Jeffrey Archer: "You turn out to be a infant again" following battling cancer

New NHS boss: support should turn into world leader in personalised medicine

Simon Stevens believes the NHS could benefit from the ‘global medical revolution’ of personalised medicine. Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA

The NHS’s new boss will on Wednesday urge the services to turn into a planet leader in personalised medication, which employs a patient’s genetic profile to devise greater remedies.

Simon Stevens, the chief executive of NHS England, will use his 1st significant policy speech to embrace the possible of what he calls an ongoing “global health-related revolution” that holds out the prospect of sufferers having a better chance of beating conditions such as cancer.

Stevens is anticipated to tell the annual conference of the NHS Confederation, at which about two,000 NHS managers will collect in Liverpool, that the NHS could benefit substantially from what he believes are “three really fundamental shifts in the practice of present day medication: a coming revolution in biomedicine, in data for high quality and proactive care, [and] in the position that individuals perform in controlling their own overall health and care”.

“The NHS has to grab these options with both hands, rather than letting them wash over us, or hoping they will bypass us so we can carry on with company as normal.” The NHS should “embrace them and harness them to our result in”, he will say in his speech on Wednesday afternoon, which will set out how the services ought to react to its growing pressures.

“A decade and a half on from the Human Genome Undertaking, we are nevertheless in the early days of the clinical payoff. But as biology becomes an details science, we are going to see the wholesale reclassification of condition aetiologies. As we are finding with cancer, what we as soon as considered of as a single issue may be dozens of distinct circumstances. So frequent diseases may in truth be extended households of quite rare ailments,” he will say.

That improvement could lead to therapies a lot better tailored to the patient’s very own genetic makeup, Stevens will include. “That will call for a lot better stratification in individualised diagnosis and treatment method. From carpet-bombing to precision focusing on. From one particular dimension fits all to a single size fits one particular. The NHS need to be at the forefront of this global health care revolution.”

Stevens, 47, took up his post on 1 April and is in charge of NHS England, which has a £95.6bn spending budget. He will announce that the organisation is inviting educating hospitals and clinical analysis centres to bid to join the new one hundred,000 genome programme, 1 of the world’s most significant efforts to date to harness the growing knowledge about people’s genetic profiles to the quest for more efficient diagnoses and therapies.

The NHS, which he desires to be “rigorously pro-science, professional-research and professional the rapid spread of beneficial improvement”, will also be “moving to a new model for regional genetics labs to upgrade and industrialise NHS abilities in this spot”, he will say.

New NHS boss: support should turn into world leader in personalised medicine

Sikh temple demonstrates how to turn out to be dementia-pleasant

“The gurdwaras are neighborhood spaces as properly as temples of worship, so they are presently familiar places for most Sikhs. But we wanted to make them less difficult to use – our very first act was to try out and make the space simpler to navigate, making positive there are clear indicators in the two Punjabi and English, so people know where to uncover the meeting rooms or even the toilets.

“Meanwhile, we’ve organised surveys and questionnaires to set up what is identified or understood about dementia, and we are operating workshops so that families can find out about the illness, and what sources are available by way of the GP service or regional carers’ groups.” There are programs for programs, lectures and physical and virtual details portals.

Dr Grewal adds: “One of the strengths of the Sikh local community is that households are very self-supportive, but this can mean a reluctance to seek assist.” As Sikhs get older, there is an acceptance of issues such as memory loss, she points out, “without understanding that this is a symptom of an illness, not an inevitable part of ageing”.

Dr Grewal has witnessed dementia in her household – even though between relatives living in India – but she has observed how close friends have struggled locally to get the assistance they need to have for a mother or father affected by Alzheimer’s. She and Dr Singh are also driven to aid simply because of their religion Sikhs believe it is their duty to serve their local community.

“This is a humble venture,” she says, “but we feel we are beginning to make an affect. We hope up coming to train folks to act as Sikh dementia ambassadors who can act as gatekeepers for info, enhance neighborhood schooling and offer help where it’s necessary most.”

For far more particulars, go to dementiafriendlygurudwaras.com. The awards shortlist is at alzheimers.org.uk/dementiafriendlyawards

Sikh temple demonstrates how to turn out to be dementia-pleasant

Art therapies have turn out to be a mainstream spouse to medicalised healing | Ruth Wishart

‘Autistic young children who have an acute sensitivity to sounds apparently reply well to musical loops in which pleasing tracks offer the two a sense of calm and a predictability.’ Photograph: Getty Photographs/Picture Supply

There is a fire extinguisher featured in Bridget Riley’s latest artwork, unveiled earlier this week. Many in fact, provided they are an obligatory element of the furniture in hospital corridors. And the 56 metres of this arresting mural, with characteristic horizontal lines in daring colours, adorn the 10th floor of St Mary’s Hospital in London.

The charity that commissioned it, Imperial School Healthcare, reasons that the influence is therapeutic on personnel as properly as the more transient audience of sufferers. It says high-good quality bold murals will provide distraction in surroundings frequently serially stressful – the ninth floor homes intensive care.

The Riley mural delivers everlasting adornment, but some one,600 artworks owned by the charity now circulate amongst five hospitals in west and north-west London, cautiously curated to reflect their surroundings one paediatric wing demonstrates animated films created by younger individuals encouraged by an artist with a six-month residency.

It is evidence, if any were still necessary, that art therapies have turn out to be a mainstream spouse to medicalised healing rather than a niche practice. There is no lack of empirical proof that the producing and viewing of artwork has developed crucial final results in situations as varied as depression and disability.

Music therapies, also now the topic of a raft of academic assessments, have created some dramatic outcomes. The broadcaster Sally Magnusson has set up a charity in memory of her late mother, Mamie – a vivacious journalist and wife of the late Magnus Magnusson – whose dementia brought memory loss but also, heartbreakingly in a lady for whom phrases and their precise utilization were a passion, an inability to string with each other rational sentences.

But, as her daughters identified, what she could even now do was sing. Sing the well-loved songs of childhood, family members outings and celebrations. Playlist for Life aids equivalent sufferers by loading personalised musical recollections on to an iPod to be played to them by families or carers. It is a pity, notes Sally drily, that between Mamie’s complete recall was each and every track from The Sound of Music, now lodged all also retrievably in her personal memory.

The celebrated neurologist Oliver Sacks wrote extensively about this phenomenon in his 2007 guide Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain. His contention is that where musical recollections are lodged in the brain is near to other locations that dementia or stroke victims are no longer capable to access.

They get rid of, he says, “their autobiography”, their identity, their story but an evocative piece of music, the soundtrack to their earlier existence, can retrieve not just the sounds themselves, but the occasions connected to them. And in so doing it can give the two lethargic and agitated patients hrs of peace and pleasure.

The United kingdom-broad Music in Hospitals motion, which has professional musicians bringing enjoyment to care residences and hospices as well, is clear that its performers must have extremely designed social antennae to match their musical accomplishment. They need to understand and react to varying temperaments and tastes.

Music as a balm for troubled souls has emotional potency. Severely autistic kids who have an acute sensitivity to sounds – which might mean daily noises like vacuum cleaners or phones result in distress – apparently react effectively to musical loops exactly where pleasing tracks provide each a sense of calm and a predictability which several on the autistic spectrum discover comforting.

There is also the healing of wounds of a non-medical origin. When Liverpool’s 2014 Biennial opens on five July, the inaugural concert will feature a Hillsborough Memorial symphony composed by Michael Nyman. No eleven Symphony is primarily based on music he was composing as the tragedy unfolded. It will, undoubtedly, result in a fresh shedding of tears by the households of the 96 victims. But then tears are therapeutic also.

What all this tells us, not least at the moment when breasts are currently being routinely beaten above drug budgets, is that what have been sometimes pejoratively dismissed as “different therapies” now have a proven track record in specified areas of medicine, specifically the place brain impairment is concerned.

Art therapies and interventions are not resource neutral – not significantly is – but there are apparent bonuses. Offering psychological respite to a disturbed youngster or a dementia-stricken grownup by way of pleasure rather than pharmaceuticals has to be desirable wherever attainable.

Inducing calm or a sense of achievement in sufferers as an alternative of distress or aggravation is a much more than welcome outcome for carers and households, no less the daily victims of stress.

Art therapies have turn out to be a mainstream spouse to medicalised healing | Ruth Wishart

British hospital to turn out to be 1st in Europe to use Skype for consultations

The move – which is component of a range of schemes to ease strain on the hospital, which is coping with massive increases in demand – has been welcomed by well being campaigners.

Ian Syme, coordinator of pressure group North Staffordshire Healthwatch, stated: “So prolonged as the patient is confident utilizing the program it sounds excellent.

“But with vastly developing numbers of silver surfers, it have to not be restricted to the young.”

One particular hospital in North Wales currently utilizes Skype – but only so nurses can check dialysis sufferers at property.

Treating individuals via Skype could avoid up to 180,000 folks a year possessing to get time off perform and travel to clinics.

Officials admit preparing for the move is nevertheless at an early stage, but it has the possible to cut the annual 517,000 outpatient appointments by 35 per cent.

Normal of cases which could be noticed by Skype video conference would be men and women who have had program surgical treatment or other treatment and merely require a medical professional to assessment ultimate scans prior to formally discharging them.

But any individual needing face-to face get in touch with and physical examinations will still be named in to the hospital.

Chief executive Mark Hackett stated: “Some patients get on engineering better that other people.

“But these methods could suit in distinct the underneath-50s who now have to get time off work to get to appointments.

“They would see it as a significantly more wise way forward to avoid producing trips to the hospital.

“We have to look at making an attempt to harness new types of technology. For instance we also need to take away paper data and quit getting plenty of clerks filling in pieces of paper.”

Skype consultations had been last evening welcomed by company leaders and well being campaigners.

Jane Gratton, deputy chief executive of Staffordshire Chambers of Commerce, said: “I feel employers would help this as effectively as their staff.

“For individuals to commit ten minutes speaking to the medical doctor whilst at perform as an alternative of possessing to consider the total day off would support their company’s productivity.

“It is excellent the hospital would like to make best use of the latest technologies.”

The move is component of a selection of schemes to ease strain on the hospital which is coping with big increases in demand.

In A&ampE alone patient numbers have soared by eleven per cent in excess of the winter despite a forecast development of just seven per cent currently being planned for.

The believe in also wants to aid GPs by setting up ‘hot clinics’ where experts can see patients with presently-diagnosed situations – and then send them straight back to their surgical procedure without needing an admission to a ward.

And it is hoping to aiming to shift out a even more 50,000 patients a 12 months through consultants operating clinics in neighborhood settings.

In 2012 the Health-related and Dental Defence Union of Scotland (MDDUS) explained in suggestions to doctors that Skype could decrease the quantity of missed GP appointments.

Healthcare adviser Dr Barry Parker, from the MDDUS, mentioned: “The concept of holding consultations by way of Skype is an intriguing advancement, which might have clear benefits in terms of convenience for sufferers and physicians.

“Seeing your medical professional in a safe and practical way in the comfort of your very own property may possibly appeal to some patients.

“Skype consultations could probably be far better than phone tips calls, in that the patient can see who they are speaking to, aiding communication, and the medical professional can gain an overall impression of the patient’s situation.”

But he added: “The medico-legal pitfalls of Skype consultations are not however fully apparent as it is a latest improvement, but it is anticipated that some of these will be comparable to telephone tips.

“The key problem for physicians will be to recognise when this mode of consultation is not ample to effectively assess the patient and tackle the problem, and to arrange a face-to-encounter consultation instead.”

Currently in North Wales a single hospital – Ysbyty Gwynedd, in Bangor – is pioneering Skype to allow kidney sufferers to use dialysis machines at home.

Rather than commit up to twelve hrs in hospital for treatment each and every week, individuals now have a degree of versatility of when and for how extended they use the machine which helps purify their blood.

The idea of making use of Skype, came from the neighborhood Kidney Patients Association.

Ken Jones, secretary of the Kidney Sufferers Association, explained: “Every week a individuals demands to undergo at least twelve hours of dialysis.

“By utilizing Skype, the patient can stay at home, they do not need to have to get dressed specifically to go out, and can do it in blocks of two hours to fit it in around their life.

“It is 100,000 occasions much better than obtaining to go to hospital.”

British hospital to turn out to be 1st in Europe to use Skype for consultations

Obese kids could turn into new norm in Europe, says WHO

Boys working. In 23 out of 36 European countries, much more than 30% of boys and ladies aged 15 or above are not receiving adequate physical exercise, Photograph: Mike Egerton/PA

Being obese is in danger of turning out to be the new norm for kids as properly as grownups in Europe, the Globe Well being Organisation warns, issuing figures displaying that up to a third of eleven-12 months-olds across the area are as well heavy.

In accordance to the EU figures, Greece has the highest proportion of obese eleven-yr-olds (33%), followed by Portugal (32%), Ireland and Spain (the two thirty%).

Whilst the UK’s figures are not directly comparable, information from the childhood measurement programme in 2011/12 suggests England has as significant a issue as any country, with 35.4% of ten- to eleven-yr-old boys and 32.four% of girls overweight. Amongst people, twenty.7% of boys and 17.seven% of girls had been obese.

The school-based mostly measurements also display that 23.5% of 4- to 5-year-outdated boys and 21.six% of ladies are overweight.

The WHO mentioned the figures for young children have been alarming. “Our perception of what is regular has shifted being overweight is now far more common than unusual. We must not let one more generation expand up with weight problems as the new norm,” mentioned the WHO regional director for Europe, Zsuzsanna Jakab. “Bodily inactivity – coupled with a culture that promotes inexpensive, practical foods large in fats, salt and sugars – is deadly.”

The WHO’s European regional workplace issued a series of country profiles at the opening event in Athens of the Greek presidency of the EU. The United kingdom profile based on WHO information shows that 64.two% of the grownup population have been obese in 2008, between whom 26.9% had been obese.

By 2030, it is forecast that much more than a third of the population – 36% of men and 33% of women – will be obese. Only the Czech Republic and Malta currently have a increased proportion of obese adults, according to the WHO information.

Young children in Europe are not physically energetic ample, the WHO says. In 23 out of 36 countries, a lot more than thirty% of boys and girls aged 15 or over are not acquiring ample exercising and eating the wrong kinds of meals.

“We need to have to produce environments exactly where physical exercise is encouraged and the healthier food choice is the default decision, regardless of social group,” mentioned João Breda, programme manager for nutrition, bodily action and weight problems at the European regional workplace. “Physical activity and healthful meals alternatives must be taken extremely critically in all environments – schools, hospitals, cities, towns and workplaces. As nicely as the meals market, the urban organizing sector can make a difference.”

Uk information demonstrates that saturated body fat can make up twelve.seven% of the calories in an regular adult diet plan, which is greater than the WHO suggested limit of ten%. The fruit and vegetable intake was only just under the recommended 600 grams per day, at 588g.

The United kingdom does extremely poorly by comparison with the rest of Europe on breastfeeding. Only 1% of babies have been breastfed by the age of 6 months as the WHO recommends, in 2010.

WHO Europe condemned the marketing of junk food to kids final 12 months in a difficult-hitting report. It mentioned youngsters had been currently being surrounded by adverts for food items higher in salt, sugar and saturated body fat, even in schools and sports activities centres. The report expressed concern about the use by foods marketers of personal computer games and smartphone apps that kids readily entry.

Some nations have managed to contain the epidemic, says the WHO, though they have not succeeded in turning it close to. In France and some Scandinavian nations, the figures seem to display a plateau impact. The WHO says they have implemented the policies it advises, such as promoting the eating of fruit and veggies in colleges, improving the nutritional good quality of college lunches, controlling advertising and imposing taxes on some foods, alongside initiatives to inspire more physical exercise in kids.

Obese kids could turn into new norm in Europe, says WHO

E-cigarettes could turn out to be "medicines" available on NHS

Some e-cigarettes could acquire ‘medicine’ standing. Photograph: Frederic J Brown/AFP/Getty Photographs

E-cigarettes could be accessible on the NHS by the end of the year with at least two businesses – a single a subsidiary of British American Tobacco – getting currently embarked on the procedure of acquiring licences from the medicines regulator.

The Uk firm Nicolites explained its application was “well-superior” while BAT’s Nicoventures has also commenced the approach, though choices on whether or not their products are prescribed on the NHS will be produced by regional commissioning groups.

The status of “medicines” will give the businesses industrial advantage and permit the e-cigarette makers to industry their item internationally, including in sponsorship bargains, a move that will be banned for competitors not in the very same bracket.

The information came to light as ministers in England prepare to ban the sale of e-cigarettes to beneath 18s – Wales and Scotland are likely to adhere to suit.

The Marketing Specifications Company is also about to launch a consultation on new rules to cover e-cigarettes, used by one.3 million men and women in Britain last year. It will start off later this month, with the framework likely to be in location by autumn, nearly two years after the very first Tv adverts for this kind of products.

The applications to the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Authority are a victory for the regulator’s determination to persuade producers and importers to apply voluntarily for a licence and meet distinct principles which includes on the amount of nicotine provided. They are continuing the approach even although the European parliament defeated United kingdom attempts to make medicinal licensing compulsory for e-cigarettes final autumn,.

Present anti-smoking therapies such as gums, patches, an inhaler, and a mouthspray presently have medicine licences and have been endorsed by the National Institute for Wellness and Clinical Excellence, which advises on good practice and worth for funds. Almost one.4m prescriptions for them have been issued in England in 2012, but licensed e-cigarettes would not require a separate Wonderful assessment.

Nikhil Nathwani, managing director of Nicolites, stated the firm was “properly superior in the product’s licencing” and hoped to achieve advertising and marketing authorisation some time this 12 months. It was working closely with the government, the regulator and Great. “This will be continued even soon after advertising authorisation has been accomplished”, he explained. Nicoventures has also manufactured a licence application for a nicotine inhalation gadget to the MHRA.

A spokesman for BAT, which presently has a regular e-cigarette brand, Vype, on sale in Britain, explained the company would like to see “a regulatory approach that puts customer safety and item top quality initial, even though allowing the proper level of innovation, marketing and distribution freedoms to let this important new item group to increase.”

A spokesperson for Njoy, a massive US cigarette firm, which has also endorsed MHRA regulation, could not say whether or not an application was in progress, when contacted.

The readiness of huge e-cigarette gamers to go down the voluntary route for the expensive procedure of medicines approval is in sharp contrast to the place of the United kingdom trade physique for e-cigarettes, Ecita, which has railed towards the more than-regulation it claims will be introduced EU-broad.

E-cigarettes classed only as client merchandise from 2016 will have to carry well being warnings that nicotine is hugely addictive. The draft EU directive, which has still to total its legislative procedure in the coming months also is made up of new curbs on tobacco – which includes well being warnings covering virtually two thirds of cigarette packs.

E-cigarettes could turn out to be "medicines" available on NHS

Depressed patients turn to the world wide web for "Skypotherapy"

The therapist’s couch has long been a staple of books and motion pictures, a location in which unpleasant truths are exposed and neuroses untangled. But, practically unnoticed, the delivery of psychological assistance is being transformed – by the net.

If you need NHS aid for typical problems such as anxiousness or mild depression, you will not automatically meet your therapist face-to-encounter. You could be at residence or even by the pool, typing your emotional strategies into a focused instantaneous messaging support. You may well be following a personal computer system that takes you step by stage by way of a CBT (cognitive behavioural treatment) programme, or possessing a digital face-to-encounter on Skype.

“The positive aspects of on the internet therapy are substantial,” says Joanna Bawa, a CBT practitioner with the NHS in Hereford. “Going into the cloud abolishes geography. You can be at home in Brighton and your therapist can be in Bradford.” Timing can be a lot more versatile, as well, she adds. “No a lot more having to miss function, or pay a babysitter, or invest half an hour travelling each and every way.”

The anonymity is especially eye-catching to men, who, says Bawa, “are more probably to go for therapy if they can confess to feelings of weakness and inadequacy with no getting recognised”.

But does net therapy – or “Skypotherapy”, as it has been termed – perform? Surely there is some thing special about the intimacy of the consulting room? “That’s what several of the much more classic therapists believed,” says Nadine Discipline, a qualified therapist who set up PsychologyOnline.co.uk several many years ago. The business, which now has a lot more than one hundred accredited CBT therapists on its books, many of whom operate for the NHS, uses an quick messaging system which can be accessed 24 hours a day.

“We locate folks become disinhibited considerably more rapidly,” she says. “Messaging is like creating in a diary just for you. The therapist’s comments pop up but you needn’t fret about what they think of you. And patients get a print-out of their conversation which helps them don’t forget and learn from the insights.”

A controlled trial of 300 depressed sufferers published in The Lancet in 2009 discovered that CBT via quick messaging aided far more of them get greater than standard GP care while a little study from Zurich, published final yr, showed the benefits of online treatment for depressed individuals could last longer than face-to-face time.

The delivery program closest to classic treatment is Skype, which offers net versatility and the extra visual element. The principal provider of a single-to-one particular consultations more than the world wide web is mootu.com, with 160 therapists, all members of BACT (the British Association of Counsellors and Therapists). It is a bit like a dating site, in that you can view a brief video of every therapist describing their method just before you commit. As John Witney, the site’s founder, says: “This gives you the best chance of obtaining one that feels correct for you.”

If you’re taking into consideration private e-therapy, it is essential to check out a site’s credentials and also to guarantee your privacy is protected.

Researchers at the University of Berne reported that a comparison of 7 therapies, such as psychodynamic treatment (which focuses on unconscious believed processes) and social skills education were discovered to be equally successful no matter whether delivered through the net or encounter-to-encounter.

When it comes to therapy, it looks, the medium isn’t the message.

psychologyonline.co.uk

Depressed patients turn to the world wide web for "Skypotherapy"