Robert Marchand, a 105 year old man from France, has shown the world that you can break records at any age!  Marchand has set a new one hour cycling record for his age by pedaling 22.547 km in the national velodrome situated in the west of Paris. By comparison, the one-hour world record is 54.526 km, set by British Tour de France winner and multiple Olympic gold medalist Bradley Wiggins.

Boy! What a fete!

Robert Marchand is really inspirational to all and the same time puts most of us to shame. He has shown that you can achieve anything, in any age, as long as you work at it consistently.

We are in an age where communication has reached a culminating point. A friend or family member residing on the other side of the earth can be communicated via the internet or phone in matters of seconds. Despite this advancement in technology, research shows that ours is a society, lonelier than what it used to be before. Findings from studies carried out on the elderly, show that this age group is the loneliest than all the other age groups.

A few findings from American studies that focused  on loneliness in the elderly are as follows:

• Eighteen percent of senior citizens in America live lonely and 43% of senior citizens feel lonely on a regular basis.
• There is a 45% increase in the risk of death among people aged 60 years or older who feel lonely, while isolated elders have a 59% increased risk of mental and physical decline compared to those elderly who socialize.
• One in 7 people with Alzheimer’s disease live alone.
• The most startling of findings was that two-thirds of older adults in America who felt lonely were either married or living with a partner.

Stroke.

A word that changed my life forever and threw me into a role that I was totally unprepared for – being a caregiver.

A brief history about myself. I am an only child. My father was a pharmacist and my mother, a nurse. Our life as a family was pretty simple and happy. We did things like other families did : going to church, weekend outings and what not. I did well in school and graduated as a chemical engineer. However, after a short stint as an engineer, I didn’t like the job. It wasn’t the right fit for me. I changed my path into the pharmaceutical industry and worked my way up to middle management. Finances was good and I decided to further on my studies while working. I took up MBA so that it would give me the extra edge to move on up the corporate ladder. Being single, I had the advantage of not having much to worry about.I had a certain lavish lifestyle which I enjoyed. My path was clear and I never once thought about the health of my parents.Why should I?  In my mind, they would always be there and enjoy my successes. They won’t fall terribly sick. They will live until they are a 100 years old. Naive thinking, indeed.