Kung Fu and the art of ageing

On July 20, 1973, 33 year old martial arts star Bruce Lee had a minor headache. He was offered a prescription painkiller called Equagesic. After taking the pill, he went to lie down and lapsed into a coma. He was unable to be revived. Extensive forensic pathology was done to determine the cause of his death, which was not immediately apparent. The determination was that Bruce had a hypersensitive reaction to an ingredient in the pain medication that caused a swelling of the fluid on the brain, resulting in a coma and death.

I was reminded of the sad story of the Kung Fu master after seeing another great Kung Fu movie this week. "The Grandmaster" is a Hong Kong-Chinese action drama film based on the life story of the grandmaster Ip Man. The film is directed and written by Wong Kar Wei. A lot happens in the movie, which gives also a nice insight in the Second Sino-Japanese War. During the war, Ip Man and his family descend into poverty and he loses his two daughters due to starvation. Even more tragedy happens. Gong Er, a great female Kung Fu master and a very good friend defeats his pupil, bad guy Ma San, during a spectacular fight at a train station on Christmas Eve 1940. However, Gong herself is heavily injured and loses her ability to use martial art.The film then fast-forwards to the 1952, when Ip Man and Gong Er meet each other for the last time. Gong confesses to Ip that she has romantic feelings for him right from the beginning. She dies shortly after, suffering from the injuries from the 1940 fight. As Ip man gets older, he also declines and dies.

What are the conclusions from the above? Well that even Kung Fu masters will eventually age and decline. Another fact is that bad medication can kill even the invincible. And that it costs much internal energy to stay invincible.

This week at WHO we did talk a lot about how to avoid these types of tragedies. How to keep functioning as long as possible? Or more precise how the combination of age, care and environment determines functioning of older people

We developed a new model for the meeting that will take place next week in The Hague. This model starts from the assumption that in ideal life there is no functional decline. The curve of age and functioning starts horizontal and is vertical at the end of life, indicating a sudden death when you are still perfectly functioning. That is more or less Kung Fu philosophy as I learned in the film, as you can end a fight in only two positions, horizontal and vertical. Of course our real functioning curve starts to decline much earlier when you age. The curve may be shifted to the right by adequate care, assistive devices and enabling environments. If the curve shifts to the right, the moment you cross the horizontal line of dependency will also be more to the right and that is our ultimate aim. To enjoy and remain independent as long as possible in life.

We may learn even more from Kung Fu. In the model functioning is more or less equal to health status. But functioning and health are different things. Functioning and performing on a high level requires much energy. If you are injured or not very healthy it is even harder to continue functioning on a high level as the example of Gong Er shows. She wins the fight but loses the battle. In fact it happens a lot in real life. Most burn outs happen when people have to work too hard and under too much stress for a too long time period. I am not sure how to include that in our model, but the relationship between health status and functioning is certainly worth exploring.

This week, I experienced it myself. My health status was not very good as I had a kind of flu attack. At the same time my functioning had to be sky high as it was the last week before the meeting that we organise next week in The Hague. About 10 papers were to be finalised, 80 participants to be informed, conclusions to be written etc . It really took me some life juices to do this. For a week or two this is possible, But I hope I will still be in a vertical position next week.

But let's not end so pessimistic. As Kung Fu philosophy also learns, If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." And another Kung Fu truth: "some functional decline can make you stronger: It's not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.”

So with these wise words I will conclude. Next week I will try to write about the outcomes of the meeting. And after these movies, I will be extra careful not to offend the participants from China, Japan, Bhutan and Thailand,

And ps: Sorry Charles, I did it again. One of my former colleagues complained that I write nice blogs but that I should do something about my addiction to movies. Cannot help it. Life is a movie.