How Can We Matter

What is Health Literacy Personal health literacy is our ability to find, understand, and use information and services to make informed health-related decisions and actions for ourselves and others. Image Credit: Erie County Department of Health For the elderly, while the "evening years" should ideally be a time of peace, they are often fraught with anxiety because of a profound "biological illiteracy." This blog highlights a critical but often overlooked aspect of aging: Health Literacy . When an individual does not understand the machine they inhabit, they become a passive passenger rather than the captain of their own health.   The following sections provide an expansion on these core points: The Anatomy of Aging: A Mystery to Many Many elderly individuals view their bodies as a "black box." They experience pain or decline as a vague, inevitable cloud rather than a specific physiological process. They are unable to distinguish between "normal aging...

Who knew I'd be sharing this unexpected health hurdle with a Bollywood celebrity? Looks like even Bollywood stars face similar challenges sometimes. Here's to hoping we both get through this soon! Photo Credit: Instagram What is the rare sensorineural deafness that singer Alka Yagnik has been diagnosed with? Alka Yagnik is a prominent Indian playback singer of 90s era Bollywood. She has received several accolades, including two National Film Awards , two Bengal Film Journalists' Association Awards and a record seven Filmfare Awards for Best Female Playback Singer from a record of thirty-six nominations. My Encounter About 4.5 months back I too had encountered a similar sudden hearing loss. My experience along with the line of treatment is recounted here:  Hearing Only What You Want to Hear! After completing the steroid treatment of two weeks, I got an MRI scan of my brain on 21-02-2024 with contrast dye used. On the whole the scanning took about an hour. The contrast dye w...

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia has laid out a new grand vision to usher in dramatic changes in the education system of the nation by introducing teaching of Indian epics Ramayana and Mahabharata in his country's school curriculum. https://youtu.be/-VWH-ocvHAc As part of the Vision 2030 of the Saudi Crown Prince, other significant elements of Indian culture like Yoga and Ayurveda will also form part of the daily life of its citizens, according to media reports. Other major reforms that the Prince has already introduced include: officially allowing women to drive cars officially approving the teaching of Yoga as a sports activity practicing naturopathy as a holistic approach to health and well-being stopping of funding mosques in foreign countries restricting volume of loudspeakers at mosques and using it only for call to prayer and not for broadcasting sermons More than six years back, Khalaf Al-Harbi, a liberal columnist and a thinker from Saudi Arabia, has descr...

This is based on a six year old  Facebook Post .  Government not only creates such infrastructure but also tells you how to utilize it properly! This morning (6 Jun 2018) I bid goodbye to the Siglap Canal deck on the East Coast Park , which was the platform for my early morning Qigong (pronounced chee-gung) session, for the past four weeks.  East Coast Park is a beach and a park on the southeastern coast of Singapore. It stretches along the south of Marine Parade, Bedok and Tampines. Themed Recreation for All , the park has something for everyone: diverse recreational, sporting, and dining activities alongside views of the sea. At 6.1km, the Siglap Park Connector runs through several housing estates and schools in the eastern part of Singapore. It is also a link to parks in the vicinity such as Bedok Reservoir Park, Bedok Town Park, Telok Kurau Park as well as the popular East Coast Park. A significant stretch of the park connector is located alongside the Siglap Canal wh...