A heart does not become less important when a person turns 60, 70 or 80. Yet, somewhere along the way, we often begin treating an elderly person’s breathlessness as “old age”, weakness as “normal”, and uncontrolled blood pressure as something they have “always had”. That can be dangerous.This World Heart Day, the experience of the SENIORS’ Heart Care Project, launched in November 2025 by the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies on Ageing (CISA), the academic and research wing of MoulMouj Foundation, under the guidance of Project Advisor Prof. (Dr.) KhurshidAslam Khan, and subsequently strengthened through collaboration with J&K Bank Heart Clinic on Wheels, Ummeed Foundation, Directorate of Health Services Kashmir and GK Labs, offers some uncomfortable but important lessons.

The project was launched as part of an effort to take cardiac care closer to elderly people, particularly those living in underserved areas. J&K Bank supported the mobile cardiac-care unit through its CSR programme, while Ummeed Foundation implemented the Heart Clinic on Wheels, and GK Labs is the lab partner. The mobile unit was designed to take investigations such as ECG, Holter monitoring, ambulatory blood-pressure monitoring, NTproBNP and other blood tests to communities that may otherwise have to travel long distances for specialised care.  By July 2026, the programme had conducted 21 outreach camps across seven districts. Together with stationed clinical services, 4,586 patients were seen. The programme identified 248 high-risk patients, initiated or modified their treatment and referred 32 patients for specialised care.  But the numbers are not the most important part of the story.

The real........

© Greater Kashmir