Doc?s stress on plans for geriatric care

DELIVERING THE SM Marwah Oration on the inaugural function of a two-day Continuing Medical Education (CME) on ?Health Care of Elderly? at KN Udupa auditorium in Banaras Hindu University on Wednesday, Head of the geriatric unit in the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (New Delhi) Prof. AB Dey said, ?Old age is not a curse but could prove to be a boon if your approach is positive?.

DELIVERING THE SM Marwah Oration on the inaugural function of a two-day Continuing Medical Education (CME) on ‘Health Care of Elderly’ at KN Udupa auditorium in Banaras Hindu University on Wednesday, Head of the geriatric unit in the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (New Delhi) Prof. AB Dey said, “Old age is not a curse but could prove to be a boon if your approach is positive”.
The Medicine Department of the Institute of Medical Sciences has organised the programme in collaboration with the World Health Organisation and Government of India.

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Prof. Dey said that adequate preventive measures were required after the age of 60 to live a cheerful old age. He said that generally old age was considered a curse because of various health and psychological complications but proper health assistance and a positive approach could change the phenomenon.“We in India do not plan for our older life and that causes enormous difficulties”, he said, advocating adequate old age plans to counter various problems, including a provision of medical expenditure for old age.

“In India, two out of three persons above the age of 60 are striving for survival whereas 87 per cent aged people suffer from acute problems of some kind”, he said, adding that older people had common illnesses in large numbers.

He informed that blindness, deafness, arthritis, osteoporosis, generative diseases, mental ill health, decline in sensory system and metabolic syndrome were most common among people above the age of 60 in India.Earlier, BHU Vice-Chancellor Prof. Panjab Singh inaugurated the programme.