Health & Wellbeing

Author: The Pure Food Co Cancer can manifest in many different ways one of which is head and neck cancer (HNCA). HNCA and its treatment can result in significant swallowing difficulties in which speech-language therapists play a key role. Head and neck cancer can refer to cancers of: The mouth …

I know a young person, who I’ll call Lucy, whose grandmother had a stroke last year. Lucy’s grandmother has regained a lot of her mobility and speech but she is struggling with her memory. Lucy proudly told me when she visits or video chats with her grandmother she always tests …

We’ve all heard of apps and online courses that can help to improve our memory and cognition, but until now, there’s been no group to review these programs to show which ones work – and which ones don’t. That’s why a group of Australian scientists undertook a systematic review of what studies …

Author: The Pure Food Co I know what you might be thinking… what on earth does speech-language therapy have to do with falls and fall prevention?? Well you’d be surprised with the areas us speechies manage to be of use. Prevelance of falls Falls are common in the elderly population …

Health, income and education levels all contribute to the growing gap between the “top 10%” and the “bottom 10%” globally. Older people are not immune to the effects of this division. A study conducted by the Centre for Ageing Better found “shameful and stark” contrasts in people’s experiences of later life. This …

Author: The Pure Food Co Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is one of the more well-known progressive neurodegenerative conditions due in part to Mike J Fox and Muhammad Ali. Attention often focuses on the motor/movement features of PD, however non-motor features may also become involved e.g. changes in behavior, sleep, and sensation. …

Author: The Pure Food Co Malnutrition in New Zealand is a real problem, especially in the older population. National studies illustrate malnutrition affects 20 to 50 percent of older adults in the health care setting, and up to 31 percent in the community. It is an issue that is often …

After years of research, biologist Elizabeth Blackburn and her colleagues – who won the 2009 Nobel Prize for medicine for their discovery – concluded that we can primarily blame ageing on our chromosomes. She explains that all the cells in our bodies carry chromosomes that are capped at either end …

New Zealanders have an affinity to water that’s hard to match with any other country in the world. In New Zealand we are very lucky to live in a country where we are never more than a couple of hours away from water, whether it be a beach, lake, or …

A new US study has found around half of people aged 65 to 80 wrongly believe that sleep problems were simply a result of ageing, with one in three using medication to help them sleep at night. The data from the National Poll on Healthy Aging at the University of Michigan also …