Most of us who have parents in “senior citizen” age category wouldn’t be strangers to active parsimony our parents and elders demonstrate when it comes to spending on their own health. You might have noticed them going through the pain and discomfort in the early stages of illness, hoping that things will be cured on their own (and many times they do). Only when the suffering becomes unbearable (and perhaps more for you then for them), do they relent to your requests to show themselves to a doctor. Otherwise, it is mostly up to home or self remedies.
Two incidents come to my mind. Few days ago, I met an eminent pathologist who is running a diagnostic center in Mumbai. He told me how he was invited to do blood scans of senior citizens in a high-end housing complex. He scanned 72 people for PSA and found four people positive, indicating that they could be in early stages of prostrate cancer!! Based on this, they went for advanced screening. It turned out to be a false alarm in some cases, but not so in all. Some elders were indeed suffering from prostrate cancer. There was a silver lining. It was detected in early stages when all was not lost for them. The protagonist of the other incident that comes to my mind was not so fortunate. She was an old lady who started to get bouts of fever. It took a while before she let her condition be known to even her immediate family members. Even when the fact that she was getting fever was known, she tried her utmost to play down the severity of her ailment. Treatment was primarily analgesics and home remedies for quite some time. Finally, when things did not improve, the family forced her to a doctor. It was found that she was suffering from fairly advanced stage of a viral urinary infection, and that it had spread to other organ systems as well. The stage was too late for doctors to do anything.
These incidents only bring forth the fact that elderly are just like children when it comes to medicine. While looking at the latter, the doctors have to deal with the fact that the power of expression of their patients is not yet developed, so they will never be able to describe their symptoms accurately. In case of elders, it will be reluctance to talk about their own suffering that will cause a similar situation. It is therefore not a bad idea at all to have your little children, and your old parents undergo periodic routine medical examination to detect any ailments brewing up and nip them in the bud. Good news is that prominent medical institutions do cater for senior citizen health-check ups.
Some of these are available on Eldess, the platform for taking care of your Elders
Eldess offers comprehensive healthcare package for elders. It serves as a platform that takes care of elderly members by providing them various health care and other support services. More information visit here: www.eldess.com
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