Caring for senior members in the family

“What do you see when you look at the aged people all around you? Do you regard them as objects of pity? Do you see them as a waste of time? Do you find them to be a drain on your resources? Do you resent them for growing old and infirm when you weren’t looking? Do you feel anger because they are casting a depressing shadow on the best years of your adult life? Do you feel ineffably sad to see what they have turned into? Do you feel guilty because you feel you don’t do enough? Does that, in turn, make you feel angry at them for making you feel this way? Or do you just feel toe-curling fear at the thought that one day you could be just like them?

“I feel at some point or another in our lives, we have felt all or most of these emotions. And given how universal they are, we should not feel ashamed for feeling this way.

“And yet, more often than not, shame is exactly what we feel. And it is that shame that makes us back away from the elderly just when we should be hugging them even closer.

“Maybe one way of coping with this is to look beyond the wrinkles, the sagging flesh, the clouded eyes, and the sparse hair. Instead we should look for the rich histories that lived behind them, the complicated tapestries of a life well lived, which would keep us entertained for days if we only knew even the half of it.

“But the sad truth is that most people have to pass on before we are willing to grant them their histories, not to mention their stories. That’s when we sit down and giggle about the time grand mom nearly burnt the house down or how grandpa turned into such a rogue when he drank a little. We giggle about that family trip where mom lost all her clothes at the riverside when she went for a holy dip. We tell each other funniest stories about family weddings and annual picnics, starring the recently departed. We pull out picture albums, which make us both laugh and cry.

“That’ when we remember the old as the people they were. Ironic, isn’t it? We are only willing and able to give them their lives back once they depart them. What a pity it is that we can’t seem to accord them that dignity and respect, not to mention affection and remembrance, when they are still around to appreciate it.

“I know it’s hard, but surely, it can’t hurt to try!”, says the veteran columnist Seema Goswami in Hindustan Times Brunch, November 9, 2014.

As people age, they become prone to some eye diseases like:

*Atherosclerosis (thickening of artery wall due to accumulation of white blood cells),
*Cardiovascular disease (involving heart and blood vessels),
*Cancer,
*Arthritis (joint disorder),
*Cataract (opacification of the lens inside the eye resulting in progressively diminishing vision...that can be improved successfully by phacoemulsification surgical operation with the simultaneous implanation of an intra-ocular lens – IOL),
*Osteoporosis (progressive bone disease that can lead to fracture),
*Type 2 diabetes (high blood sugar and insulin resistance),
*Hypertension (high blood pressure), and
*Alzheimer’s disease (dementia).

Make it a point to let the senior member in your family have the benefit of comprehensive eye examination, today, and don’t forget to take along the previous medical record, if any.

Picture shows a tree guard embedded in the trunk of a tree (Image source: Hindustan Times, November 8, 2014).

Dr. Narendra Kumar
Ophthacare Eye Centre
C2C/236A Janakpuri more