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Jaw-droppingly, six out of 10 policyholders still do not shop around when their pension matures, but simply accept the annuity quotation which their existing company offers, according to data from the Association of British Insurers.

Stuart Bayliss, pensions expert at Annuity Direct, said: "This is complete madness.

Buying an annuity will dictate a person's income and therefore lifestyle for decades.

Yet most people just accept the first offer they get." Even those who do shop around are often oblivious to the existence of these specialist health policies and only a small fraction will ask for enhanced terms.

If they did, Tomorrow's research concluded, they would receive 20% more on average, which the company says would boost a typical pension pot of £25,597 by £334 annually.

However, Annuity Direct says these figures are too conservative.

Bayliss said: "Tomorrow's findings are based on raw numbers.

We sex-adjust on the grounds that men have much bigger pension pots, and typically win far more through an enhanced annuity." Whatever the potential gains, everyone agrees they are big.

Enhanced or impaired annuities are a relatively new concept, wit...

Long-standing, untreated high blood pressure places a strain on the artery walls increasing their risk of bursting and subsequent bleeding.

"Stroke is the most preventable of all life threatening health problem," said Dr Chua.

People with high blood pressure, heart disease, high Kuala Lumpur Hospital Medicine department head Datuk Dr S.

Jeyaindran warned that smoking increases the risk of stroke twofold.

"I have advised my patients to kick smoking and to regularly check for hypertension," he said.

"It’s important those with hypertension take their medication regularly and also increase their dose, upon consultation, if their blood pressure is high." Having high blood pressure increases stroke risk four to six times.

To create awareness on stroke, its prevention, warning signs and rehabilitation, Nasam has published a book, Understanding Stroke, in English, Bahasa Malaysia and Mandarin.

It is available free of charge at all Nasam centres in the country.

The effects of a stroke attack are many.

Poor co-ordination, abnormal posture, loss of movement or abnormal movement patterns on one side of the body, loss of speech or difficulty in talking, incontinence, partial loss...

Each family will be given two forms: a general one related to the family and another related to an adult member of the same family (male or female over 18) who will get a free checkup by the visiting team.

The team will choose the family member randomly based on certain medical criteria.The 147 teams that will conduct the survey will be trained next week by 40 people who themselves are currently being trained at a four-day workshop that started yesterday.

They will learn how to train the teams on collecting the correct information from the families keeping in mind the different traditions of each region.

Each team consists of a doctor and a nurse.

The Ministry of Health randomly chose the families from a sample from the General Statistics Department at the Ministry of Economy and Planning that did the census around two years ago.Chosen families had their houses marked with posters informing them of the upcoming survey.Al-Jilani added that the survey would also collect information regarding the public opinion on health care in the Kingdom and personal expenses on health care.“This survey will help estimate the mortality rate among different age groups and people who suffer from chronic diseases,” said Dr.

Mohamed Ba-Sulaiman, general director of planning at the Ministry of Health and a co...