December 2012 - Costa Calida Chronicle

Liberty Seguros Life Policy
Feel Secure and At Ease Knowing that
You and Your Family are Protected!
One of the best ways to tell your loved ones
that you love them is by taking out a life
insurance policy from Liberty Seguros, the
No. 1 choice insurer for expats living in Spain.
For very little money you can protect them
from the financial consequences of a death,
disability or serious illness, all of which can
cause great financial setbacks.
What if you died tomorrow and were no
longer around to provide for your family?
Losing a loved one is distressing enough
at the best of times, but Liberty Life from
Liberty Seguros offers you peace of mind
knowing that your family can maintain the
lifestyle they are accustomed to and that your
dependents will get the financial support they
need.
They can provide a replacement for income
that would have been earned by the deceased
to provide
for the
family’s
b a s i c
needs,
f i x e d
costs,
children’s
education
and to
k e e p
future
plans on
track.
The main
insurance
cover is
the
payment for the sum insured in the case of
death, but many additional covers such as
disability or serious illness may be added for
a little more.
Liberty Life eases the worry about funeral
expenses too, as they will advance some of
the money up front towards the initial burial
costs!
Depending on your family situation as well as
other factors, the experienced staff at Liberty
Seguros will determine which cover suits you
best. They can give you expert advice in your
own language and are happy to answer any
questions you may have.
There is no better company to put your trust
in when it comes to important matters such
as Life Insurance. Liberty Mutual Group
is one of the largest insurance and financial
groups in the world! They have been insuring
the present and future of millions of people
across 5 continents for nearly a century!
Call 902 255 258 or go to www.
libertyexpatriates.es and ask to be called
back in your own language, or find out where
your nearest broker or Liberty Seguros
office is located.
In association with Costa Cálida International Radio and www.angloINFO.com
Old Dogs
There is a biologic
clock that
measures the
life of different
species.
This clock goes
faster as dogs
are concerned,
so we can estimate
that the
average life is
12-14 years in small sized dogs and 10-11 in
big and giant sized dogs. Of course, there are
many aspects that determine the time of life
for an animal including the genetic code, the
kind of food and care given by the owners and
of course the lifestyle, etc.
It is true that everyday, we find animals with
diseases typical during old age that may be
in terminal states or completely unbalanced,
that could have been detected before (cataracts,
diabetes, arthritis, heart, hepatic or renal
disorders).
There are some metabolic and physiopathologic
effects associated to ageing:
• Decrease of the metabolic rate with less
activity and a decrease of 30% or 40% of
the caloric needs.
• Immunodeficiency, in spite of the normal
number of lymphocytes.
• Presentation of self-immune diseases.
• Increase of the muscular, bone and joint
mass with the development of arthritis.
• Hyper-pigmentation, increase and lost of
elasticity of the skin.
• Tartar, periodontitis, gum or hyperplasy
atrophy or lost of teeth.
• Atrophy and fibrosis of the gastric mucus.
• Development of hepatic fibrosis.
• Decrease of the secretion of pancreatic
enzymes.
• Decrease of the respiratory capacity.
• Atrophy of the renal area.
• Development of urinary incontinency.
• In males, increase of the prostate, testicular
atrophy and pendulous foreskin.
• In females, increase of the ovaries, fibro
cysts, and mammary tumours.
• Decrease of the cardiac effort and development
of valve fibrosis.
• Accumulation of fat and hypoplasia of
bone marrow and development of nonregenerative
anaemia.
• Decrease of the number of cells of the
nerves system and lost of training.
As we can see, all
the organic systems
get affected with the
passing of time and
the only thing we can
do against this is to
adopt measures based
on nutrition, hygiene,
medicines or surgical
treatments that help
the animal to have a
good quality of life.
It is a fundamental
aspect that is often
forgotten and it is often
preventative veterinary
medicine that is required. This is why
we recommend all the small sized dogs older
than 8, and big sized ones older than 6 have
geriatric checkups at least once a year.
These checkups will include an exhaustive
analysis about diet, life habits, previous diseases,
etc, a complete physical exploration
of the skin, eyes, ears, mouth, muscles, and
bones, neurological examinations, auscultation,
electrocardiogram, analysis of the cells
of the blood and biochemistry, analysis of
urine and thorax x-rays. These tests could be
extended to hormones tests, heart and abdomen
ecographies, serologies and biopsies
of any tissue depending on the history of the
dog. All these tests could help us to make an
early diagnosis of some of the diseases that
caught in time and properly treated, can give
a good quality of life to our pet.
Let’s imagine a 9-year-old Alsatian is brought
into the consulting room because it can hardly
walk, drinks a lot and has loss of urine.
After doing some tests, we could see that it
had very serious arthritis in the hips and the
last lumbar vertebras. The dog is obese, has
a hyper-adronocorticism and a handball-ballsized
prostate tumour. It will be expensive for
the owner to treat the animal, and the prediction
and the hope of a good quality of life for
the animal is dark. Possibly, if it had had a
geriatric check up some time before, the vet
would have recommended a diet and some
medicines to control the hormonal diseases
and arthritis, and if the tumour had been detected,
it could have been operated on.
Cases like this are common and it is just one
of so many that makes us think carefully
about the need to have geriatric checkups
more often.
Article written and supplied by Paco,
Clinica Veterinaria, Puerto de Mazarrón.
Page 28
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