I’ve been diagnosed with cancer. How do I tell my children?
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With around one in 50 adults diagnosed with cancer each year, many people are faced with the difficult task of sharing the news of their diagnosis with their loved ones. Parents with cancer may be most worried about telling their children.
It’s best to give children factual and age-appropriate information, so children don’t create their own explanations or blame themselves. Over time, supportive family relationships and open communication help children adjust to their parent’s diagnosis and treatment.
It’s natural to feel you don’t have the skills or knowledge to talk with your children about cancer. But preparing for the conversation can improve your confidence.
Preparing for the conversation
Choose a suitable time and location in a place where your children feel comfortable. Turn off distractions such as screens and phones.
For teenagers, who can find face-to-face conversations confronting, think about talking while you are going for a walk.
Consider if you will tell all children at once or separately. Will you be the only adult present, or will having another adult close to your child be helpful? Another adult might give your children a person they can talk to later, especially to answer questions they might be worried about asking you.
Finally, plan what to do after the conversation, like doing an activity with them that they enjoy. Older children and teenagers might want some time alone to digest the news, but you can suggest things you know they like to do to relax.
Also consider what you might need to support yourself.
Preparing the words
Parents might be worried about the best words or language to use to make sure the explanations are at a level their child understands. Make a plan for what you will say and take notes to stay on track.
The toughest part is likely to be saying to your children that you have cancer. It can help to practise saying those words out aloud.
Ask family and friends for their feedback on what you want to say. Make use of guides by the Cancer Council, which provide age-appropriate wording for explaining medical terms like “cancer”, “chemotherapy” and “tumour”.
Having the conversation
Being open, honest and factual is important. Consider the balance between being too vague, and providing too much information. The amount and type of information you give will be based on their age and previous experiences with illness.
Remember, if things don’t go as planned, you can always try again later.
Start by telling your children the news in a few short sentences, describing what you know about the diagnosis in language suitable for their age. Generally, this information will include the name of the cancer, the area of the body affected and what will be involved in treatment.
Let them know what to expect in the coming weeks and months. Balance hope with reality. For example:
The doctors will do everything they can to help me get well. But, it is going to be a long road and the treatments will make me quite sick.
Check what your child knows about cancer. Young children may not know much about cancer, while primary school-aged children are starting to understand that it is a serious illness. Young children may worry about becoming unwell themselves, or other loved ones becoming sick.
Older children and teenagers may have experiences with cancer through other family members, friends at school or social media.
This process allows you to correct any misconceptions and provides opportunities for them to ask questions. Regardless of their level of knowledge, it is important to reassure them that the cancer is not their fault.
Ask them if there is anything they want to know or say. Talk to them about what will stay the same as well as what may change. For example:
You can still do gymnastics, but sometimes Kate’s mum will have to pick you up if I am having treatment.
If you can’t answer their questions, be OK with saying “I’m not sure”, or “I will try to find out”.
Finally, tell children you love them and offer them comfort.
How might they respond?
Be prepared for a range of different responses. Some might be distressed and cry, others might be angry, and some might not seem upset at all. This might be due to shock, or a sign they need time to process the news. It also might mean they are trying to be brave because they don’t want to upset you.
Children’s reactions will change over time as they come to terms with the news and process the information. They might seem like they are happy and coping well, then be teary and clingy, or angry and irritable.
Older children and teenagers may ask if they can tell their friends and family about what is happening. It may be useful to come together as a family to discuss how to inform friends and family.
What’s next?
Consider the conversation the first of many ongoing discussions. Let children know they can talk to you and ask questions.
Resources might also help; for example, The Cancer Council’s app for children and teenagers and Redkite’s library of free books for families affected by cancer.
If you or other adults involved in the children’s lives are concerned about how they are coping, speak to your GP or treating specialist about options for psychological support.
Cassy Dittman, Senior Lecturer/Head of Course (Undergraduate Psychology), Research Fellow, Manna Institute, CQUniversity Australia; Govind Krishnamoorthy, Senior Lecturer, School of Psychology and Wellbeing, Post Doctoral Fellow, Manna Institute, University of Southern Queensland, and Marg Rogers, Senior Lecturer, Early Childhood Education; Post Doctoral Fellow, Manna Institute, University of New England
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Elderly loss of energy
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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!
In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!
As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!
So, no question/request too big or small
❝Please please give some information on elderly loss of energy and how it can be corrected. Please!❞
A lot of that is the metabolic slump described above! While we certainly wouldn’t describe 60 as elderly, and the health impacts from those changes at 45–55 get a gentler curve from 60 onwards… that curve is only going in one direction if we don’t take exceptionally good care of ourselves.
And of course, there’s also a degree of genetic lottery, and external factors we can’t entirely control (e.g. injuries etc).
One factor that gets overlooked a lot, though, is really easy to fix: B-vitamins.
In particular, vitamins B1, B5, B6, and B12. Of those, especially vitamins B1 and B12.
(Vitamins B5 and B6 are critical to health too, but relatively few people are deficient in those, while many are deficient in B1 and/or B12, especially as we get older)
Without going so detailed as to make this a main feature: these vitamins are essential for energy conversion from food, and they will make a big big difference.
You might especially want to consider taking sulbutiamine, which is a synthetic version of thiamin (vitamin B1), and instead of being water-soluble, it’s fat-soluble, and it easily crosses the blood-brain barrier, which is a big deal.
As ever, always check with your doctor because your needs/risks may be different. Also, there can be a lot of reasons for fatigue and you wouldn’t want to overlook something important.
You might also want to check out yesterday’s sponsor, as they offer personalized at-home health testing to check exactly this sort of thing.
❝What are natural ways to lose weight after 60? Taking into account bad knees or ankles, walking may be out as an exercise, running certainly is.❞
Losing weight is generally something that comes more from the kitchen than the gym, as most forms of exercise (except HIIT; see below) cause the metabolism to slow afterwards to compensate.
However, exercise is still very important, and swimming is a fine option if that’s available to you.
A word to the wise: people will often say “gentle activities, like tai chi or yoga”, and… These things are not the same.
Tai chi and yoga both focus on stability and suppleness, which are great, but:
- Yoga is based around mostly static self-support, often on the floor
- Tai chi will have you very often putting most of your weight on one slowly-increasingly bent knee at a time, and if you have bad knees, we’ll bet you winced while reading that.
So, maybe skip tai chi, or at least keep it to standing meditations and the like, not dynamic routines. Qigong, the same breathing exercises used in tai chi, is also an excellent way to improve your metabolism, by the way.
Ok, back onto HIIT:
You might like our previous article: How To Do HIIT* (Without Wrecking Your Body)
*High-Intensity Interval Training (the article also explains what this is and why you want to do it)
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Oscar contender Poor Things is a film about disability. Why won’t more people say so?
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Readers are advised this article includes an offensive and outdated disability term in a quote from the film.
Poor Things is a spectacular film that has garnered critical praise, scooped up awards and has 11 Oscar nominations. That might be the problem. Audiences become absorbed in another world, so much so our usual frames of reference disappear.
There has been much discussion about the film’s feminist potential (or betrayal). What’s not being talked about in mainstream reviews is disability. This seems strange when two of the film’s main characters are disabled.
Set in a fantasy version of Victorian London, unorthodox Dr Godwin Baxter (William Dafoe) finds the just-dead body of a heavily pregnant woman in the Thames River. In keeping with his menagerie of hybrid animals, Godwin removes the unborn baby’s brain and puts it into the skull of its mother, who becomes Bella Baxter (Emma Stone).
Is Bella really disabled?
Stone has been praised for her ability to embody a small child who rapidly matures into a hypersexual person – one who has not had time to absorb the restrictive rules of gender or patriarchy.
But we also see a woman using her behaviour to express herself because she has complex communication barriers. We see a woman who is highly sensitive and responsive to the sensory world around her. A woman moving through and seeing the world differently – just like the fish-eye lens used in many scenes.
Women like this exist and they have historically been confined, studied and monitored like Bella. When medical student Max McCandless (Ramy Youssef) first meets Bella, he offensively exclaims “what a very pretty retard!” before being told the truth and promptly declared her future husband.
Even if Bella is not coded as disabled through her movements, speech and behaviour, her onscreen creator and guardian is. Godwin Baxter has facial differences and other impairments which require assistive technology.
So ignoring disability as a theme of the film seems determined and overt. The absurd humour for which the film is being lauded is often at Bella’s “primitive”, “monstrous” or “damaged” actions: words which aren’t usually used to describe children, but have been used to describe disabled people throughout history.
In reviews, Bella’s walk and speech are compared to characters like the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz, rather than a disabled woman. So why the resistance?
Freak shows and displays
Disability studies scholar Rosemarie Gardland-Thomson writes “the history of disabled people in the Western world is in part the history of being on display”.
In the 19th century, when Poor Things is set, “freak shows” featuring disabled people, Indigenous people and others with bodily differences were extremely popular.
Doctors used freak shows to find specimens – like Joseph Merrick (also known as the Elephant Man and later depicted on screen) who was used for entertainment before he was exhibited in lecture halls. In the mid-1800s, as medicine became a profession, observing the disabled body shifted from a public spectacle to a private medical gaze that labelled disability as “sick” and pathologised it.
Poor Things doesn’t just circle around these discourses of disability. Bella’s body is a medical experiment, kept locked away for the private viewing of male doctors who take notes about her every move in small pads. While there is something glorious, intimate and familiar about Bella’s discovery of her own sexual pleasure, she immediately recognises it as worth recording in the third person:
I’ve discovered something that I must share […] Bella discover happy when she want!
The film’s narrative arc ends with Bella herself training to be a doctor but one whose more visible disabilities have disappeared.
Framing charity and sexual abuse
Even the film’s title is an expression often used to describe disabled people. The charity model of disability sees disabled people as needing pity and support from others. Financial poverty is briefly shown at a far-off port in the film and Bella initially becomes a sex worker in Paris for money – but her more pressing concern is sexual pleasure.
Disabled women’s sexuality is usually seen as something that needs to be controlled. It is frequently assumed disabled women are either hypersexual or de-gendered and sexually innocent.
In the real world disabled people experience much higher rates of abuse, including sexual assault, than others. Last year’s Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability found women with disability are nearly twice as likely as women without disability to have been assaulted. Almost a third of women with disability have experienced sexual assault by the age of 15. Bella’s hypersexual curiosity appears to give her some layer of protection – but that portrayal denies the lived experience of many.
Watch but don’t ignore
Poor Things is a stunning film. But ignoring disability in the production ignores the ways in which the representation of disabled bodies play into deep and historical stereotypes about disabled people.
These representations continue to shape lives.
Louisa Smith, Senior lecturer, Deakin University; Gemma Digby, Lecturer – Health & Social Development, Deakin University, and Shane Clifton, Associate Professor of Practice, School of Health Sciences and the Centre for Disability Research and Policy, University of Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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The Lost Art of Silence – by Sarah Anderson
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From “A Room Of One’s Own” to “Silent Mondays”, from spiritual retreats to noise-cancelling headphones, this book covers the many benefits of silence—and a couple of downsides too.
In an age where most things are available at the touch of a button, a little peaceful solitude can come at quite a premium, but what it offers can effect all manner of physical changes, from reduced stress responses to increased neurogenesis (growing new brain cells).
The tone throughout is a combination of personal and pop-science, and it’s very motivating to find a little more space-between-the-things in life.
The book is best enjoyed in a quiet room.
Bottom line: if you get the feeling sometimes that you could rest and recover fully and properly if you could just find the downtime, this book will help you find exactly that.
Click here to check out the Lost Art of Silence, and find peace and strength in it!
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Sometimes, Perfect Isn’t Practical!
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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!
In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!
As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!
So, no question/request too big or small
❝10 AM breakfast is not realistic for most. What’s wrong with 8 AM and Evening me at 6. Don’t quite understand the differentiation.❞
(for reference, this is about our “Breakfasting For Health?” main feature)
It’s not terrible to do it the way you suggest It’s just not optimal, either, that’s all!
Breakfasting at 08:00 and then dining at 18:00 is ten hours apart, so no fasting benefits between those. Let’s say you take half an hour to eat dinner, then eat nothing again until breakfast, that’s 18:30 to 08:00, so that’s 13½ hours fasting. You’ll recall that fasting benefits start at 12 hours into the fast, so that means you’d only get 1½ hours of fasting benefits.
As for breakfasting at 08:00 regardless of intermittent fasting considerations, the reason for the conclusion of around 10:00 being optimal, is based on when our body is geared up to eat breakfast and get the most out of that, which the body can’t do immediately upon waking. So if you wake and get sunlight at 08:30, get a little moderate exercise, then by 10:00 your digestive system will be perfectly primed to get the most out of breakfast.
However! This is entirely based on you waking and getting sunlight at 08:30.
So, iff you wake and get sunlight at 06:30, then in that case, breakfasting at 08:00 would give the same benefits as described above. What’s important is the 1½ hour priming-time.
Writer’s note: our hope here is always to be informational, not prescriptive. Take what works for you; ignore what doesn’t fit your lifestyle.
I personally practice intermittent fasting for about 21hrs/day. I breakfast (often on nuts and perhaps a little salad) around 16:00, and dine at around 18:00ish, giving myself a little wiggleroom. I’m not religious about it and will slide it if necessary.
As you can see: that makes what is nominally my breakfast practically a pre-dinner snack, and I clearly ignore the “best to eat in the morning” rule because that’s not consistent with my desire to have a family dinner together in the evening while still practicing the level of fasting that I prefer.
Science is science, and that’s what we report here. How we apply it, however, is up to us all as individuals!
Enjoy!
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Could ADHD drugs reduce the risk of early death? Unpacking the findings from a new Swedish study
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Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) can have a considerable impact on the day-to-day functioning and overall wellbeing of people affected. It causes a variety of symptoms including difficulty focusing, impulsivity and hyperactivity.
For many, a diagnosis of ADHD, whether in childhood or adulthood, is life changing. It means finally having an explanation for these challenges, and opens up the opportunity for treatment, including medication.
Although ADHD medications can cause side effects, they generally improve symptoms for people with the disorder, and thereby can significantly boost quality of life.
Now a new study has found being treated for ADHD with medication reduces the risk of early death for people with the disorder. But what can we make of these findings?
A large study from Sweden
The study, published this week in JAMA (the prestigious journal of the American Medical Association), was a large cohort study of 148,578 people diagnosed with ADHD in Sweden. It included both adults and children.
In a cohort study, a group of people who share a common characteristic (in this case a diagnosis of ADHD) are followed over time to see how many develop a particular health outcome of interest (in this case the outcome was death).
For this study the researchers calculated the mortality rate over a two-year follow up period for those whose ADHD was treated with medication (a group of around 84,000 people) alongside those whose ADHD was not treated with medication (around 64,000 people). The team then determined if there were any differences between the two groups.
What did the results show?
The study found people who were diagnosed and treated for ADHD had a 19% reduced risk of death from any cause over the two years they were tracked, compared with those who were diagnosed but not treated.
In understanding this result, it’s important – and interesting – to look at the causes of death. The authors separately analysed deaths due to natural causes (physical medical conditions) and deaths due to unnatural causes (for example, unintentional injuries, suicide, or accidental poisonings).
The key result is that while no significant difference was seen between the two groups when examining natural causes of death, the authors found a significant difference for deaths due to unnatural causes.
So what’s going on?
Previous studies have suggested ADHD is associated with an increased risk of premature death from unnatural causes, such as injury and poisoning.
On a related note, earlier studies have also suggested taking ADHD medicines may reduce premature deaths. So while this is not the first study to suggest this association, the authors note previous studies addressing this link have generated mixed results and have had significant limitations.
In this new study, the authors suggest the reduction in deaths from unnatural causes could be because taking medication alleviates some of the ADHD symptoms responsible for poor outcomes – for example, improving impulse control and decision-making. They note this could reduce fatal accidents.
The authors cite a number of studies that support this hypothesis, including research showing ADHD medications may prevent the onset of mood, anxiety and substance use disorders, and lower the risk of accidents and criminality. All this could reasonably be expected to lower the rate of unnatural deaths.
Strengths and limitations
Scandinavian countries have well-maintained national registries that collect information on various aspects of citizens’ lives, including their health. This allows researchers to conduct excellent population-based studies.
Along with its robust study design and high-quality data, another strength of this study is its size. The large number of participants – almost 150,000 – gives us confidence the findings were not due to chance.
The fact this study examined both children and adults is another strength. Previous research relating to ADHD has often focused primarily on children.
One of the important limitations of this study acknowledged by the authors is that it was observational. Observational studies are where the researchers observe and analyse naturally occurring phenomena without intervening in the lives of the study participants (unlike randomised controlled trials).
The limitation in all observational research is the issue of confounding. This means we cannot be completely sure the differences between the two groups observed were not either partially or entirely due to some other factor apart from taking medication.
Specifically, it’s possible lifestyle factors or other ADHD treatments such as psychological counselling or social support may have influenced the mortality rates in the groups studied.
Another possible limitation is the relatively short follow-up period. What the results would show if participants were followed up for longer is an interesting question, and could be addressed in future research.
What are the implications?
Despite some limitations, this study adds to the evidence that diagnosis and treatment for ADHD can make a profound difference to people’s lives. As well as alleviating symptoms of the disorder, this study supports the idea ADHD medication reduces the risk of premature death.
Ultimately, this highlights the importance of diagnosing ADHD early so the appropriate treatment can be given. It also contributes to the body of evidence indicating the need to improve access to mental health care and support more broadly.
Hassan Vally, Associate Professor, Epidemiology, Deakin University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Big Think’s #1 Antidote To Aging
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Why This Video Is Important
A lot of what we talk about here at 10almonds is focused on healthy aging. We want you – our lovely readers – to not only live for a long time, but also be healthy enough to enjoy that “long time”.
We’ve talked about anything from Dr. Greger’s eight anti-aging interventions, to the specific benefits of resveratrol or metformin in combatting aging, to even reducing stress-induced aging.
So, why is this video important? It goes beyond just talking about what we know about living longer, but also focuses on how we should live longer; there’s a big difference between living a long life but never leaving your house vs. living a long life beyond your front door.
The Takeaways
The core message that Big Think wants to convey is that our lifestyle is our best bet in slowing the aging process. Our bodies are adaptive systems, responding positively to healthy lifestyle choices. They focus on exercise: regular physical activity increases healthspan, consequently extending lifespan.
A key takeaway is the difference between physical activity and exercise. While any movement counts as physical activity, exercise is a deliberate, health-focused activity. It benefits the brain by releasing growth factors that strengthen critical areas like the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex.
The video encourages embracing physical activity in any form available to you, from gardening to walking. The goal isn’t to hit a specific number of steps but to stay active in a way that suits your lifestyle.
Science may not solve death. Yet. But focusing on maintaining a healthy, functioning state for as long as possible is the real victory in the battle against aging. And, at the moment, exercise seems to be our best bet:
How did you find that video? If you’ve discovered any great videos yourself that you’d like to share with fellow 10almonds readers, then please do email them to us!
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