SOWETO ELDERLY ADOPT CHINESE SELF-HEALING
‘ Clapping ’ helps to relieve pain Men have higher risk of heart ailments
THE elderly in Soweto are adopting ancient Chinese methods to heal their frailty and sicknesses.
Residents at the Soweto Home for the Aged in White City are employing an age-old Chinese therapeutic method “Paida and La Jin” – loosely translated to “clapping and stretching” – with outstanding results.
Paida and La Jin is a self-healing technique developed by Master Hong-Chi Xiao that is based on ancient traditional Chinese medicine.
Those who practise it have to “clap ” themselves or be “clapped ” on parts of their bodies.
A bench with a perpendicular board attached to it is also used for stretching.
The elderly women were in awe of the healing influence of this simple technique, and praised the young woman – Tshidi Dinku – who administered it.
Dinku became aware of Paida and La Jin two years ago when she was retrenched from her job as a waitress.
She has since travelled the world and even met Hong-Chi Xiao in China recently.
Dinku said the therapy was easy to learn, safe to apply and it helped with many things, including blood circulation.
“I started by practising Paida and La Jin on my mother.
“She had gallstones in the bladder and was scheduled for an ope- ration, ” she said.
Dinku said her mother has never had that operation.
She said the therapy helps with stress, depression and many other physical and mental ailments.
Busisiwe Nkosi, 71, who is wheelchair-bound after suffering a stroke, is in better spirits.
Nurses said Nkosi had a speech impediment stroke.
“I couldn’t talk when we began with [Dinku],” Nkosi said.
“But today I can speak and be understood. ”
Many elderly woman expressed mild pain when they were clapped, but bounced as if walking on a springboard when it was over.
because
of
her ONE in three men in South Africa suffer from heart-related conditions, financial management institution Liberty revealed this week.
The statistics are based on claims the company paid out in 2012.
“One in three men claimed because of a heart attack or other heartrelated condition,” Nicholas van der Nest, divisional director of risk products at Liberty said.
Medical officer at Liberty, Dr Philippa Peil, said TB was the leading cause of death in SA in 2009 with HIV the sixth leading cause of death in men and eighth in women.
“The common reasons for claims received in 2012 were for cancer, heart conditions and strokes. These accounted for about 80% of critical illness claims while cancer and cardiovascular problems were responsible for roughly 40% of life-cover claims over the same period,” he said.
Peil said the biological differences in the sexes explained why women and men suffer from different illnesses.
“Oestrogen protects women by increasing their good cholesterol and decreasing their bad cholesterol.
“Males have higher bad cholesterol than females, which increases their risk of heart disease,” Peil said.
Van der Nest said women outlived men because their hearts aged differently.
“Men’s hearts lose 20-25% pumping power from age 18 and 70. In the same period there is no age-related decline in the power of a female heart, meaning that a healthy 70-year-old woman ’ s heart can perform almost as well as any 20 year old,” he said.