The Golden Rule Quotes

“…the phenomenon of restlessness as the day comes to its end is called ‘sundowning’ and is familiar to those who live with or care for someone who has dementia. I think it is an atavistic behaviour; birds do it… and you can hear it from a field of sheep too, the crescendo bleating of lambs and ewes in the gathering dusk pg302”
― Lucy Pollock, The Golden Rule: Lessons in living from a doctor of ageing

“Three things for when you’re feeling down: Do something for yourself. Do something for someone else. Go outside. Pg 279”
― Lucy Pollock, The Golden Rule: Lessons in living from a doctor of ageing

“Parkinson’s disease in its later stages can torment with its unpredictability. It seizes you then lets you go from hour to hour or later, even from minute to minute… the medicines are partially effective – tablets enhance the supply of dopamine, the key neurotransmitter that is inexplicably depleted in this illness… in a bad trough someone with Parkinson’s may freeze completely. Pg252”
― Lucy Pollock, The Golden Rule: Lessons in living from a doctor of ageing

“A long time ago in a physics class we did an experiment where you take a small spring and put it on a hook and measure its length. You hang a little weight on it and watch it stretch. Then you take the weight off and the spring returns to where it was before, ready for the next weight, which is heavier. And you repeat this process, the weight a little heavier each time and the spring stretches further, returning each time to its original length until suddenly it doesn’t. And that is its elastic limit… we all have an elastic limit and many of us find it by reaching it… But we can watch for signs in ourselves that we are approaching that limit – bad behaviour or tears, impulsivity or poor sleep, or being overwhelmed by small things… and when we recognise those signs we need to take some weight off that spring. Pg 226-7”
― Lucy Pollock, The Golden Rule: Lessons in living from a doctor of ageing

“Advance plans were important before the pandemic and they remain important now... When we have a kind, honest conversation with each person or with their family or friends, or, best of all, everyone together, and especially when those conversations take place in better circumstances, with time to explore hopes and fears, then good plans can be made often surprisingly easily and with a sigh of relief.
Yet right now most escalation plans are created in exactly the type of situation they are designed to avoid: in an Emergency Department, or on a dark wet night in a care home or a bungalow with the paramedics’ stretcher waiting in the doorway for a decision, to stay or to go.
Advance care planning, including the creation of kind, articulate Treatment Escalation Plans that reflect the wishes of their owner, should be a right, not a burden, for all older people, and especially for those who have chronic conditions that can suddenly worsen and for those who live in care homes, whose views about treatment are better explored than assumed. Pg208-9”
― Lucy Pollock, The Golden Rule: Lessons in living from a doctor of ageing

“If social prescribing means listening to people, understanding their life and then offering something that has value for that person, that will do for me. I have stopped worrying about whether social prescribing works. Of course it does. Pg186”
― Lucy Pollock, The Golden Rule: Lessons in living from a doctor of ageing

“There are problems that cannot be fixed by either conventional or social prescribing, and I listen sometimes to the discussions in the complex care meetings about Jason, a recidivist alcoholic, vile to his family and haughtily dismissive of every lifeline that is thrown his way, and about Francine, a reclusive hoarder, her floorboards rotting under her feet, as the conversations meander on about mental capacity and safety and personal choice, and it’s clear that the only way to fix the problems of both these people is to turn the clocks back… and since that is not an option, it would be better that we leave them as they are and maintain a level of contact that is humane but also respectful and realistic. Pg184-5”
― Lucy Pollock, The Golden Rule: Lessons in living from a doctor of ageing