In the hot summer, the continuous high temperature weather makes people sweaty when they move. The increase in sweating can easily lead to changes in the structure and function of the skin, and skin diseases also follow. Especially the elderly, whose autoimmunity is in decline, coupled with a variety of chronic diseases, the risk of skin diseases such as boils, eczema, and herpes zoster is also rising.

Skin diseases endanger the health of the elderly

Some data show that the prevalence of skin diseases in Chinese is as high as 40%-70%. Among them, the elderly are the "hardest hit areas" due to skin aging, immune aging and basic diseases, which not only affect the health of the elderly, but also affect the health of the elderly. closely related to quality of life.

Taking herpes zoster as an example, more than 90% of adults have varicella-zoster virus latent in their bodies. The virus is latent in the dorsal root ganglia or cranial ganglia of the spinal cord for a long time. As it descends, it can become activated, triggering shingles. The virus can damage and damage the body's sensory nerves, resulting in paroxysmal or persistent severe pain. Pain more than 90 days after the appearance of the shingles rash is called post-herpetic neuralgia, which can affect the patient's sleep ability, mood, directly reduce the patient's quality of life, and even some elderly patients lose their lives permanently after the disease self-care ability.

If you get it once, you won't get it again?

From a clinical point of view, many elderly people do not know enough about skin diseases, and even some patients do not know that they have skin diseases after they develop herpes.

Shingles usually occurs mostly in the intercostal nerves, concentrated in the waist and abdomen, and may also appear on body parts such as the eyes and ears. Some shingles don't necessarily see the blister, it's just pain. That is to say, the pain that occurs before the skin lesions.

There are also many people who think that after having chickenpox, you will not get shingles, which is also a common misunderstanding. Chickenpox and shingles are caused by the same virus. After chickenpox is cured, the virus will still be dormant in the body. With the changes in the external and internal environment, the virus will be activated. In addition, there is also a recurrence rate after shingles is cured, about 6%.

Elderly skin diseases are not irreversible

The elderly are prone to skin problems, but it is not impossible to prevent them. First of all, it is necessary to strengthen a regular life, including proper exercise, adequate sleep, a balanced diet, good living habits and mentality. For the early prevention and treatment of chronic basic diseases, it can effectively reduce the incidence of skin problems. onset of disease.

Second, vaccination is also particularly necessary. At present, the elderly in my country generally lack the willingness to be vaccinated against infectious diseases, and the willingness rates for pneumococcal vaccine, influenza vaccine and shingles vaccine are only 36.0%, 46.9% and 49.6% respectively.

The elderly's consideration of vaccination cost is the main factor affecting the vaccination rate. However, once shingles occurs, 65% of patients aged 60 and older will develop postherpetic neuralgia, and the cost of treatment will actually bring a greater burden to patients.

Aiming at the problem of insufficient cognition, it is still necessary to start from the source and take root in the community to improve the prevention awareness of common skin diseases among the elderly. Volunteer workers in our hospitals and communities have all participated in the publicity and education of skin diseases, jointly raising the awareness and ability of the elderly on disease prevention, and escorting the health of the elderly.