Professor Brocklehurst considers bowel disorders in old age

When people say that they are constipated they may mean one of two things - either that their bowels are opened less frequently than they think they ought to be or that they have difficulty in passing the stool. Of course, these two aspects are often combined. It is often thought that ageing itself leads to constipation but this is not the case. Surveys have shown that normal old people have their bowels open as frequently as young people. In this country' about 98 per cent of individuals have their bowels open between three times a week and three times a day and one might, therefore, regard this as the normal range. Table 1 shows how elderly poeple of each sex compare with this range. It will be seen that women have their bowels open less frequently than men but this applies to women of all ages.