Handbook for successful ageing - Introduction

Due to newer findings I update this handbook by the end of every end of the quarter. After having downloaded the handbook in order to have a quiet read, you should erase it afterwards, since you will later have the possibility to download the latest version if required. I naturally cannot take over any responsibility for the correctness of my information and advice, but only assure that I act with the most possible diligence.
    

Acknowledgement
    

I thank all my assistants, who helped me to write this handbook and Ms. Ingrid Gaus, Ms. Geetha Shamanna, Ms. Stefanie Kramer and Ms. Julitta Leonhardt, who translated it into English.
   

Appeals to my readers
  

If you have relatives or friends who do not have access to the internet, please show them this handbook and print the parts they are interested in.

If you print for visually impaired people, use the type size Arial and test beforehand which type size they read best.

If you are a doctor, so please check to whom of your patients you may recommend this handbook.

Finally, I ask every one of you, who have probably gained some experience due to illness, to make suggestions for improvement and addition.
  

Preface
  

To age successfully means to stay, as possible, physically and mentally healthy until the end of life and at the same time to become as old as possible, if you want to.

To be healthy means for me that you feel well, that you are able to do everything that is important to you despite a possible disability or disease and that you are able to adapt to changed situations, in case of need.
  

"I think, a person is healthy, when he manages to make peace with himself and his circumstances, and when he feels confidence in God"
- Peter Hepp, deaf-blind deacon in "The world in my hands (Die Welt in meinen Händen)"; Munich, List, 2005 -
  

"Healthiness is the power for being a human."
- Karl Barth -
  

"Someone who does not respect health, will be sorry in old age."
- Worldly wisdom from Poland -
   

"If you want to become old, you have to start early enough."
- Worldly wisdom from Spain -
   

We start to age from the date of our birth. Therefore this handbook does not only address elder people, but everyone who wants to live in a way to age successfully.

You can "already in your younger years make a crucial contribution towards reaching a high age while remaining healthy, active and independent", Prof. Andreas Kruse writes in his "15 rules for becoming old in a healthy way".

According to the WHO, it’s not important how old we become, but how we become old. A worldly wisdom from China corresponds to this:

"It does not matter how old you are, but how you are in your old age."
  

However, you probably see a task in your life, which makes you ask yourself furthermore "how old" or even "how you become at best preferably old". In general, women live longer than men. Elder women who have not worked, yet, then often complain about the difficulties of filing a tax return and accounting for special costs they have to pay to financial assistance or private insurances, since, hitherto, this has been the domain of their husbands. Because of that, all men should consider this as a reason to become older than women, if possible, and if this cannot be achieved to expose their wives to this subject. Men can especially contribute to the extension of their lives by not smoking, living in a healthy way and not neglecting the use of preventive examinations.

As I see several tasks like these for myself, I have brought together and included everything into my daily life that makes me reach this goal - with the help of God. And I pass it on to everyone who does not just live, but wants to emulate me, whether this person is already old or still young.

My handbook will be suitable for you, too, if you do not want to become preferably old for particular reasons, but if you want to stay healthy until the end of your life.

Hopefully the handbook will help all of you, your relatives, your friends and acquaintances, any of your colleagues as well as your families to become successfully old . Furthermore, I ask all of you to recommend it.

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