THE SENSIBLE NONSENSE

“Honour thy father and thy mother, so that you may live long and it may be well with you”. This is the admonition from the word of God, the faith of the Christians, and other religions. Though other beliefs might not put it in this context but they also place high regard to the idea of giving respect and honour to elderly ones most especially parents.

It has been seen as a prevailing norm in our society nowadays, every children look forward to throw a big memorial/burial party for their aged ones. This we can agree is quite good as everyone prays that their children would be the one to bury them. But looking into the dimension that many people approach this matter, they most times don’t do this because they are giving honour to the late, but sees this as a way of showing their fame and riches to their friends and colleagues, while other see it as a way of making money because they believe the more crowd that gathers for the ceremony, the more the monetary return they will make from the guests who will attend the party.

This practice is fast spreading across the whole place; it has become a thing of competition in the society. Children no longer pay adequate attention to the medical and health needs of their aged while they live. Many of these aged are neglected because their children now have their own family and are so much consumed with the day to day demands of their works and social responsibilities. In some other cases many children are so distant to their parents that they live them to be vulnerable to environmental and many nutritional calamities, thereby bringing about the uprising of old age illness and many times avoidable deadly diseases.

The prospective study carried out at the Neurology Unit of department of Medicine on deaths that occurred in patients 60 years and above admitted to University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH), Ilorin, between January 2005 and June 2007. It was found out that stroke and infectious diseases are leading causes of death.

Also a retrospective review of mortality patterns of elderly patients from January 2007 to December 2011 occurring in Irrua specialist teaching hospital, (ISTH), Irrua and its environs revealed that the most commonly encountered cause of mortality was cerebrovascular accident (stroke) constituting 141 (25.1%) cases. The 2nd and 3rd majority of mortality cases were malignancies and diabetes mellitus (metabolic disorder) accounting for 85 (15.2%) and 45 (8%) cases, respectively. Others include congestive cardiac failure 35 (6.2%), Septicaemia 29 (5.2%), trauma 26 (4.6%) while chronic renal failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease consist of 22 cases (3.9%) each.

Non-communicable diseases particularly cerebrovascular diseases and malignancies were the most commonly encountered cause of elderly mortality in our environment. Notwithstanding a large percentage of mortality patterns also results from communicable diseases with sepsis as the leading cause of mortality. Studies have shown that in the past, communicable diseases constituted a huge source of mortality and morbidity in Africa as compared to western countries were non-communicable disease predominates. However currently there is a paradigm shift from communicable to non-communicable diseases in Africa. Reports have it that the disease patterns and mortality rates from cerebrovascular accidents, cardiovascular diseases, Diabetes and renal diseases is on the increase in Africa. This emerging trends of non-communicable diseases morbidity and mortality patterns in developing countries is worrisome because only very few well-equipped facilities to cater for such patients are available across the country with records of population explosion.

Notwithstanding, it is important to note that a large percentage of elderly mortality cases comes from communicable especially infectious diseases. This is similar to several reports by different researchers. The reasons for this similarity may partly be attributed to poverty, overpopulation with overcrowding, poor hygiene and socio-cultural believes.

Non-communicable diseases particularly cerebrovascular diseases and malignancies are the leading causes of elderly mortality in our environment. Diabetes mellitus and trauma were also commonly encountered causes of death in the elderly. However, a large percentage of mortality patterns also results from communicable diseases with sepsis as the leading cause while meningitis and viral haemorrhagic fever were frequently common. 

From the analysis above we would see that there is no much sense in throwing up a party for someone who could have been rescued and enjoy a prolonged life if the same money is committed to taking care of them. Honour giving to a dead is no longer an honour but a jamboree. We need to come to the understanding that a living soul is worth more than gold or party that anyone can organise. This is because no matter how age this people are, they can still contribute to the value system of any environment. Many geriatrics, tell stories of past events of which younger ones could lay hold on to foster a better life. While having them around sometimes brings about encouragement and source of wisdom to the younger ones most especially the teenagers.

Hence, there is the need to advocate a holistic care for the elderly to reduce the scourge of both non-communicable and communicable disease mortality in elderly. Efforts should be geared toward reducing risk for cardiovascular diseases and improvement on level of personal and community hygiene.

In other to discourage the spread of this senseless party after death, there is a need for government to provide adequate funding for the provision of modern facilities to adequately take care of the aged in the society. Government need also to create a sensitization programme that will enlighten young ones on the need to take adequate care of their aged; they must also improve on the health care delivery for the elderly ones in the society. There must be a regulated programme that sensitizes the aged on the kind of foods that is good for them as they age and also make easy access for the purchase of these kinds of foods. On the other hand, children should know that they too will become old one day. They should treat their parents in the same manner they would like their own children to treat them when they become old too. They should always create time out, to monitor the health of their aged ones, carry out test on them as need timely so that they can ascertain they state of their health with time. It will also be good if they could hire a hand that will always watch on them and take care of them as needful, even if they will not have all the time to stay with them.

Conclusively there is a need to show them more affection; children must create a holiday time to spend with these aged ones as this will drive joy and elation within them as result of the companionship they will enjoy in this period. If young people would essentially carry out these opinions, there would be a reduction in this act of sensible nonsense ravaging the lives of our elderly ones, sending them to untimely graves.