ABSTRACT
Healthy ageing is largely about having a healthy lifestyle. This chapter suggests some ways of staying healthy in older age. Maintaining health and preventing its deterioration is an essential part of high-quality nursing, and it is with this in mind that we focus on what nurses can encourage older people to do to enable them to stay in the best possible, all-round health. We have known for some time that exercise, sometimes much less than we expect, is beneficial to health. National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence recommends that nurses give ‘brief advice’ focused on the latest government guidelines, the individual’s health status, current level of activity, and his/her preferences, goals, and motivations for exercise. Social prescribing is a new trendsetter steeped in optimism in that it is thought to have the potential to improve people’s health and well-being and cut health- and social-care costs.
