My grandma is pretty tech savvy for an 87 year-old. Not only does she own a full suite of interconnected devices, she also knows how to use them. She even managed to troubleshoot an issue with my tablet that had me stumped a few months back, and she’s forever recommending new podcasts. She loves them because they keep her in touch with current affairs and happenings that aren’t always adequately covered in the traditional news.
The latest show she’s been listening to is about emerging innovations in the health sector. Not surprisingly for someone of her age, she has a mounting list of assorted complaints that all require management, and she’s keen to be ahead of the curve. “You know how GPs are,” she’s always saying. “Lovely people, but they don’t know everything.” Well, of course they don’t know everything. I think I get what she means though. It probably becomes pretty apparent once you’re more than half a decade senior to your doctor.
Anyway, the latest episode of this show was an interview with an expert on hyperbaric medicine. Melbourne, the interviewer states in the introduction, is starting to see more of this particular type of therapy, which has been used to treat conditions ranging from decompression sickness to gangrene. Basically, it’s used where there’s an insufficient supply of oxygen to an area of the body’s tissues.
Now, one of my grandma’s health complaints is type 2 diabetes, and she’s been advised that she could be at risk of developing a foot ulcer – the prospect of which, understandably, deeply freaks her out. Obviously, managing her diabetes is the key thing to do, but she was interested to hear that there are treatments of this nature available should the necessity arise.
Having listened to the interview, I still don’t completely understand what the therapy actually entails, but it something to do spending time a chamber that has an ambient air pressure three times higher than the norm. I’m sure grandma could tell you the ins and outs – she kind of puts me to shame on these things.