Summer is certainly coming. This is the season to have fun, spend time outdoors, frolic under the sun and sport your expensive swim suit that will surely put younger adults to shame! Summers are meant to be spent outside after all.
Unfortunately, it is not safe anymore for elderly people to do this even for younger seniors who are in great health and fitness levels. 20 years ago, it was even forgivable to go out without that sticky sunscreen and sun protection. You can just walk out and stroll away. I even remember the immediate concern for most environmentalists back then: a little hole in the ozone layer; not thinning, not detrimental but a sure portent of what’s to come. 10 years forward, sun screen is a must; if not, you risk exposing your skin to skin cancer. Yet another 10 years and this is what we get, heat waves. Simply put, this issue is no longer about us as an individual person and how we choose to risk ourselves out there; right now, we don’t have much of a choice but to accept what mother nature is going to give us, whether we like it or not.
Heat waves kill. It kills more than any other natural calamities known to us. Heat waves killed thousands of people in the past and is still killing by hundreds every single year, either reported or not; immediate and by health complications. Heat wave hit Chicago in 1995, and then there was France in 1998, the most recent being this year in Australia, along with others that did not bring too much assault in human race but had been uncomfortably hot nonetheless. Weather experts also warn people that due to global warming, they are expecting temperatures to soar higher this year.
By definition, heat wave is considered as such if and when it lasted at least a day of uncomfortably hot, abnormally high temperature combined with unforgiving humidity. It usually runs for days and even weeks unrelenting. A normal human body needs to cool down after experiencing such combination of humidity and high temperature, similar to a sauna experience; but heat waves are remorseless as they can go for days on end. This, of course, can bring catastrophic results to a human body especially to that of a senior’s.
What others won’t probably know is that elderly people are at a greater risk during heat wave. When the body’s temperature is steadily rising, it will reach its limit and when it does, your body can no longer cool itself down or cooling efforts exerted by your body will no longer be enough especially in elderly people’s cases when their bodies’ ability to cool down is much slower than a younger person’s. This is also true for infants and children ages 4 and below, overweight people and those with disabilities and limited range of motion.
Among any other heat-related implications, heat stroke or sun stroke proves to be the most fatal of them all. Others are sunburn, heat cramps and heat exhaustion. Senior citizen is always advised to stay in climate controlled facilities during hot and humid days to avoid health risks.
