Let's get older
Amazing that this woman even has time for an interview. She is the medical director of the Protestant Geriatric Center in Berlin, teaches students, advises the Federal Government and is not least there for her patients. And apparently at any time. "She's coming soon," her secretary told us over the phone. "Same" lasts 20 minutes. That's how long the doctor needs to get from her office on the first floor to our meeting place in the fifth. Later, on a tour of the clinic, we realize why: "Professor, where I see you right now ... Do you have a moment?" She does not have him, but she takes it. Retires to a quiet corner with the wife of a patient to explain her an investigation. If a patient shakes his hand and asks how she copes with the prescribed sports program, she encourages her. Always in a hurry, with a flowing coat and waving red hair, but always in the right place. Luckily for us, we have an appointment in a secluded meeting room? and we register with relief that the doctor turns her mobile off.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: Mrs. Prof. Steinhagen-Thiessen, when is a person old?
Elisabeth Steinhagen-Thiessen: You start with the most difficult question right away.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: You can not answer as a geriatric doctor?
Elisabeth Steinhagen-Thiessen: I do not want to shirk, but this question can not be answered so blankly. Here in the clinic we have patients, both women and men, who are only in their mid 60s, but look much older. And we have a 98-year-old, a former professor of linguistics. She fell at the train station and broke her leg when she was about to go to Italy. This woman is so mentally fit that you can only marvel, and physically she is fine, apart from the accident now.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: So we also want to grow old. Could you give us a forecast of what our chances are?
Getting older: It's never too late to change anything
Elisabeth Steinhagen-Thiessen: I could do that. First of all, I would have to know how old your parents are or have become, how long your grandparents lived and whether they have grown old in health. Research has shown that the genetic make-up is crucial to how a human ages.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: It is our credit so to speak.
Elisabeth Steinhagen-Thiessen: Yes, and we can deal with it either way. We can multiply a small fortune and squander a big one. If someone smokes, drinks, and weighs two hundredweight for a lifetime, it will not be in the good 80s or 90s, no matter how old the parents are.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: So you have to live well in adolescence, if you want to grow old, right? And if you have not done that, maybe even smoking today, eating too fat, not moving enough?
Elisabeth Steinhagen-Thiessen: It's never too late to change anything. I'm dealing with old people, and not all of them have always lived well. But they can also turn around in old age, pay attention to their bodies, give up ill-making habits. And then they feel better, they have something of it.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: Women are healthier, and they have the higher life expectancy. Are they also healthier in old age than the men?
Elisabeth Steinhagen-Thiessen: Not necessarily. They even go to the doctor more often than men. , ,
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de:. , . because they are more pious?
Elisabeth Steinhagen-Thiessen: Because they have more pain. Many women in their old age have diseases associated with musculoskeletal pain, such as osteoporosis and osteoarthritis.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: But is not that unfair? We do it better than the men, and in old age we feel worse?
Elisabeth Steinhagen-Thiessen: I am not responsible for justice as a medical doctor. The fact is: at a young age, women are healthier off. For example, cardiovascular diseases are much less common in men than in men.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: Because they live healthier?
Elisabeth Steinhagen-Thiessen: That matters, but it's not the main reason. Crucial is the level of cholesterol, the main risk factor for these diseases. Cholesterol levels increase slightly in all people from birth. For women that is much slower? until about the age of 45 This is related to the fact that before the menopause, the body's estrogens protect the vessels. Later, the values rise rapidly and are then even higher than the men. Therefore, heart attacks occur from mid-life in women just as often as in men.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: The midlife, the menopause are apparently a turning point? then it goes physically downhill with us.
Getting older: avoid extremes
What each of us can do: avoid extremes.
Elisabeth Steinhagen-Thiessen: If we allow it: yes. If we do something in good time for our health and there are no disasters or illnesses that we can not influence, then from 40, 50, 60 we have many more beautiful years ahead of us.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: For the "Berlin Age Study" of the Charité and other institutions, have you interviewed more than 500 women and men together with other experts? including active, mentally alert 100-year-old. What is the recipe of these people?
Elisabeth Steinhagen-Thiessen: Of course there are always several factors coming together, we already talked about the genetic equipment. But what each of us can do is actually quite simple: avoid extremes.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: So do not eat too fat, but do not eat exclusively from steamed vegetables and whole grain rice.
Elisabeth Steinhagen-Thiessen: Right. The diet should be varied. These people, who buy everything and everything in the health food store, have a "total titmice", I think. It is enough to go shopping with your eyes wide open. Also to take the small, rough apples from the local farmer instead of the big smooth, half-ripe flown in from New Zealand. Starting a healthy life does not mean either: starting tomorrow, I can not drink a drop of alcohol. Empty half a bottle every night, that's not good. As I said: avoid extremes. , ,
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de:. , , So no extreme sports.
Elisabeth Steinhagen-Thiessen: But not, that would be more harmful than healthy. Important is regular exercise, a good cardiovascular and endurance training.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: How, for example?
Elisabeth Steinhagen-Thiessen: Run 45 minutes three times a week, at a moderate pace. I try to keep that up, and I'm fine. I do not care about running fast and creating as many miles as possible, my joints would not be able to do that.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-WOMAN.de: come? Is not it depressing to be constantly confronted with the transience of life?
Elisabeth Steinhagen-Thiessen: I find it significant that you ask me that. Characteristic of the picture of the age that we have in Germany. For us, age means gray hair, illness, failure, dementia, dying. , ,
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: Is not it?
Getting older is associated with growing life experience.
Elisabeth Steinhagen-Thiessen: Of course we will eventually get gray hair, of course we can get sick in old age. This is very likely from about 85 years. But many people go well into old age, both physically and mentally. Aging is also associated with an increase in life experience. You know more than in youth, can see things more relaxed. I learn a lot from my patients.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: But you did not opt for geriatric medicine.
Elisabeth Steinhagen-Thiessen: No. I wanted to be in a subject that has a future. And the fact that geriatric medicine and also what we call anti-aging today is becoming more and more important has already become apparent when I was still in education. I have never regretted my decision, I still find it exciting to see how people age.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: Is age more exciting than youth?
Elisabeth Steinhagen-Thiessen: For me as a scientist in any case, because age has so many facets. When we are born, we are all about 50 to 52 inches tall and weigh about three pounds. And we are also very similar. , ,
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: Well, well, every kid is unique, is not it?
Elisabeth Steinhagen-Thiessen: For the proud parents, that's natural, and I also think that my daughter is unique. But if we were to bring together and examine all healthy newborns in Germany, we would find only a few differences between the children from a purely medical point of view.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: And that is different with old people?
Elisabeth Steinhagen-Thiessen: Yes. The older we get, the further apart the development. That is why it is so difficult to give a general answer to the question of when a person is actually old.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: According to your definition in the "Berlin Age Study" we will be from 70 "young" and from 85 "old age". How would you like to live when you get to this age?
Elisabeth Steinhagen-Thiessen: As long as possible, I want to work as a doctor and do research, I love this work. At the age of 65, I'm going to retire, that's the same in Germany, you can either work or be a pensioner, there's nothing in between. So I'll just look for other options.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: for example?
Elisabeth Steinhagen-Thiessen: I would imagine that in a country where medical care is not as good as ours, we could build a hospital.And I want to continue working in my specialty, the lipid metabolism disorders. There is a high rate of hereditary dyslipidemia in some Muslim countries because marriages between cousins are common there. I could do a lot for such patients.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: You probably do not come to be frail in old age.
Elisabeth Steinhagen-Thiessen: My genetic requirements are favorable, my mother is 86, my father is 87, and both are fine. My grandparents all turned 85, too. Of course, this is no guarantee that I stay healthy for so long, despite all prevention. But I always want to be active, to develop myself, if possible throughout my life.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: Is this a healthy age recipe we could stick to?
Elisabeth Steinhagen-Thiessen: It's my recipe, but it does not have to be good for everyone. I'm one of those who has to go fast, who gets slightly impatient, who always needs to do something. That is part of my nature, it will not change in old age. Others may say: If I'm out of work, I'd like to read all of Dostoevsky's novels. Or write a book. Or finally have more time for my garden. By the way, that's also a wish of mine. Recently, I spent a week at home and really enjoyed working in the garden for hours.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: So we do not have to have a guilty conscience when we do not work anymore in old age, snowboard or cultural tours, but only want to put up the legs.
It is important to deal with the elderly.
Elisabeth Steinhagen-Thiessen: Of course not! Everyone according to his taste. It is only important that you deal with age in good time. Let it come to you, it's not as bad as you think. And decide in time and in peace how you want to live later. Because in old age such decisions become more and more difficult. Not just because the strength is diminishing, but because in old age we can and want to adjust more and more to new things.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: How do we find out what is right for us in old age?
Elisabeth Steinhagen-Thiessen: Just as you have discovered many other things: By looking at how others do it. When I was still in education, I wanted to know: How do other women in medicine, how do they continue to work, how do they reconcile this with private life and family? At that time, there were far fewer female doctors than today, yet I found role models.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: Do you have any role models for how you want to live in old age?
Elisabeth Steinhagen-Thiessen: But yes, anyone can find it. I know many old people who shape their lives the way they feel best. Take a look around your area, learn about models for living in old age, clarify what would be financially realistic for you. Maybe there is already a ready-made solution for you, otherwise you will make your own model.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: That sounds like it's no longer a problem to grow old in Germany. Is that true, do you have any more wishes?
Elisabeth Steinhagen-Thiessen: But a lot, there is still much to do. That there are only four chairs for geriatric medicine in Germany is a scandal. We urgently need doctors who are specially trained to treat old people. Not just family doctors, but doctors of all disciplines, including, for example, gynecologists and orthopedists. We need concepts on how to prevent serious illnesses and accidents in old age. We need programs for the rehabilitation of old people in the hospital. , ,
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: Stop, stop, we will not go that fast. As we know you, you've already submitted a to-do list to the Minister of Health, right?
Elisabeth Steinhagen-Thiessen: Right. And I'm also doing something for something to change. Every year at the Charité we transport 900 students and teach them in geriatric medicine. The subject is compulsory. I think you can be confident. When you are old, you will have good doctors.
To person: Elisabeth Steinhagen-Thiessen had already completed her medical studies at the age of 23, she was a professor at 33, and the pace has continued. Today, the 61-year-old holds the chair of geriatric medicine at the Berlin Charité and is medical director of the Protestant Geriatric Center. It consists of hospital and day clinic, rehabilitation, nursing station and sports facilities. For older people over 50, advice and sports courses are offered. So far, there are only a few institutions of this kind in Germany, such as the Albertine Hospital in Hamburg and the Bethanien Hospital in Heidelberg. Elisabeth Steinhagen-Thiessen is married and has a daughter.
