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Much yawping about medical care on this thread. it was interesting to me, because paula just the other day was saying that the last conference she went to on women's health was all about NOT doing exams, but instead they are to question about whether you wear a bike helmet, have a gun in the house, wear a seatbelt when you drive etc. But they want to get away from TOUCHING patients, which as a gyn is pretty routine. My parents were a bit skeptical of drs, didn't go often, and my dad was sure that docs were looking for ways to make $ off of him! I see a fair amount of that type of thinking on that thread and it amazes me, since I assume people are more educated and enlightened in this day and age.

Listen to your parents. My mother died at 100+ years. She avoided doctors until she was about 96 and enjoyed good health. It was all downhill from then on. I don’t think anything they did for her helped. More than once they shot her spine full of plaster, threw her into a taxi, and let her off at the curb. (I didn’t know until after the fact.) Once they delivered her to her sister in law’s house after one of those out patient capers. Trouble is — her SiL was blind. Then there was the $1000s on hearing aids that never worked. $1000s more on eyeglasses that didn’t help. Endless instructions that just made her fearful and did nothing for her overall health. Filled her head with ideas that she needed to lose weight (she weighed 110 lbs.), that she couldn’t eat red meat, brown rice was the only good rice, iceberg lettuce shouldn’t be consumed, that she shouldn’t have chocolate after 2 pm., etc.

A lot of what they “do” for the elderly is just placebo and sometimes makes things worse. At the end the meds they gave her just messed with her mind. She was very sharp, except after the meds when she started saying silly things. She would have been so embarrassed to hear back some of the things she said because she prided herself on being sharp and witty. I think that they wanted to prove that she had dementia (she didn’t ) so that they could move her to “memory care”, a service for which they could charge more. She died before they could make a case for that.