Senior citizens take time to understand caregivers

Hyderabad: Indians believe senior citizens are to be taken care of by their children and that the family unit must not disintegrate. This makes it very difficult for them to adapt to changes such as sending parents to old-age care homes. With 600 million senior citizens worldwide, and with the number set to double by 2025, there is a strong need being felt to have sustainability and age-inclusiveness in urban areas where most senior citizens live. Presently, one person in 10 is aged 60 years or more and by 2050, this will be one person in five.

Evolving concepts of senior citizens’ colonies and day care centers have come up to ensure that they can spend time with their own age-group while their children and grandchildren are away from home. But homes for the elderly or old-age homes are still considered suspicious.

Psychologist Dr Pragya Rashmi said, “The concept of emancipation that is to wean away from home is not in Indian culture. In the Western countries, children are sent away once they are 18 years but that does not exist in India. Our socio-psycho environment believes that elderly people have to be taken care of by the family. This is a return for all their care and love which must be given back to them. This is an integral part of our system. Hence, any step outside this, of shifting to an elderly home, is taken negatively. It is taken as a rejection by the elderly citizen and also the society.” Also, the culture in India puts elderly citizens on the priority list in terms of decision making for the family.

Dr Ramana Cherukuri, senior consultant psychiatrist and director at Asha Hospitals said, “All their lives, parents have taken decisions for their children. Now for them to listen to others becomes an area of conflict. There are problems seen in India, especially with the daughter-in-law, where the ideas or points mooted by her are often rejected. This creates a lot of friction in the family. Also, the elderly express an unwillingness to accept the fact that they are dependent. This is a mental lock that they have and that creates frictions in acceptance of any kind of help from caregivers.” Caregivers are mostly close family members — either daughters, daughter in law or sometimes sons – and they too face a lot of challenges in convincing them to opt for physical help in day-to-day life. Abhijeet Bose, a researcher who often opts to work from home due to the old age of his father said, “My father is in stage 2 of Alzheimer’s disease and can’t go out alone.

But he was such an outdoor person that he is unwilling to keep himself at home. I have to log out in the afternoon and evening and take him for short walks. He is not willing to understand that he can get lost, a point which the doctor and I have tried to explain in so many ways.”

Similarly, there is also a lot of resistance for assisted care when it comes to toiletries, brushing, washing of hands even among those who are able to walk around. Savita Vasvani, who takes care of her mother-in-law, said, she was not able to get up from the washroom for over an hour. She was gasping for breath and urgent medical help was sought but she refused to go to the hospital and emergency treatment had to be given at home. After she stabilised, the doctor insisted that she had to come to the hospital for a check-up which took her too long to accept.”

These problems faced by caregivers are very often narrated to the doctors, para-medical staff or psychiatrists but they too require help and better understanding of the issues. At the same time, they also require respite and acknowledgment from the family members. Experts state that there is a strong need to have a forum where caregivers can interact, share experiences and also learn the fine points of better handling, which is completely lacking.