•‘Japa has emptied many homes, many parents are depressed’
Professor Bade Omololu is a 68-year-old orthopaedic surgeon with Banby Specialist Hospital, Ibadan, who has taken it upon himself to go around talking to the elderly on living well and staying healthy. He speaks with Sade Oguntola on the reality of growing old and why planning for old age should start early.
One or two years after people’s retirement, you hear they are dead. What exactly is the problem?
Well, most of the time, the problem about ageing is that people don’t plan for their retirement. Ideally, everybody should start planning for retirement the day work starts. By 10 to 15 years before retirement, he should have a plan for what he wants to do with his life. When people leave work suddenly and they don’t think about retirement, no matter how much money they get because of the sedentary life and they’re no more thinking about anything, they succumb to illnesses shortly after retirement.
How does one ensure that they live long and well since you say we should plan? What are the things that people can do?
Well, living long is by the grace of God, apart from genes in the family. Two, eating good food and exercising are vital. One needs to cut down on the intake of carbohydrates and fatty meals like meat and offal. Eating healthier foods like vegetables and fruits is essential. These are some of the things that individuals should think seriously about as they are getting older. The body does not metabolise carbohydrates well, and they will get deposited as fat. Fat is one of the risky things with carbohydrates that can shorten one’s life.
We say genetics in the sense that some families live longer than others. Exercise is vital; even mental exercise is important. You need to exercise your brain at all times through reading and studying.
As people grow older, pain becomes a friend. They may experience back pain, neck pain, pain in the ankles and so on. What is your advice for the elderly to cope with pains like these?
Well, apart from the normal drugs they give to them, stretching exercises help. You know the elderly cannot do rigorous exercises. So, stretching exercise will help. Walking for 15-20 minutes each day will help. Swimming may be helpful for individuals with arthritis, elderly or young. Also, drugs for arthritis and physiotherapy can help the elderly.
Elderly people should be mindful of their sitting postures. They must watch the chairs or sofa they use. Low chairs and sofas are not good for the elderly. The dining chairs are good when they are high. So they should sit upright. Those are better for the elderly than the one that will make you sink and lurch.
Well, for those who have neck issues, they just have to see their doctor and get neck collars and be taught appropriate seating positions and what to do when they’re sitting. Like my laptop is now, it should be at the appropriate angle to my neck to avoid neck pains. So anything that will make you be looking downwards is not good. You have to look straight.
In your day-to-day care of the elderly, what are those things that are coming up strong that you want to call their attention to? Maybe you’re seeing a trend that is bothering you, or you’re seeing a trend that you want to speak to.
Well, one big problem or trend at the moment affecting the elderly is the empty nest syndrome. The Japa syndrome has created so many problems now. So many houses are empty; the parents are depressed and they’re lonely because there is nobody to talk to. They may be rich, but the money is useless when you’re old. That’s one thing I found out: even if you buy two cars, you are not going to use them for anything. Even the food they’re putting there, how much of it do they eat? So I found out companionship to the elderly is key.
Then for those who are religious, going to church services and meetings in the church will also help them get out of that depressive mode. They will have the opportunity to discuss with other people. Then interacting with old friends, you know, we’ve lost the communal effect of our society. Before now, it used to be a big family network. You have your uncle’s son, your auntie’s daughter and others with you. But these days, nobody talks to anybody. And this use of phones now is destroying everything, particularly the social media. People don’t even talk to each other. So those things are not helpful for the elderly because they need to interact. It’s not just “I called my dad at home last year or three weeks ago”. No, you need to visit the elderly and see that they’re well. Merely visiting your elderly parents will give them joy for the next two to three months. So it’s different from having a face-to-face chat or talking with them on the phone, even if you can afford it.
That I have a disease in old age, is it enough for me to say I’m going to die in the next few years? Does having medical challenges translate to not living well or living long?
No, the fact that you have a disease does not mean you are going to die if the disease is controlled. The problem people have is “this god will do it ministry”. No, you’ve got to check yourselves and do frequent tests to know what you have. The fact that you have blood pressure, which is hypertension, or diabetes doesn’t mean you are dying. My own father died at 105; he had diabetes, and he had cancer of the prostate, but he still died at 105. I have an uncle now. He’s 95, he’s diabetic, he’s hypertensive, and he’s been like that for almost 50 years, but he’s still living. So, if you control the disease you have, you will live long.
How do you control those diseases?
By seeing your doctors, taking the adequate medicines and following the instructions – dietary control and exercise – that we said to control weight, that’s the way.
People talk about an individual having more than three different diseases and, as a result, requiring different medications, thus making compliance an issue as one grows old. How about this?
There is hardly any elderly person that will not have one disease or the other. It’s controlling it that matters. If you live long enough, it’s been documented that if you live long enough, a Black person you will develop high blood pressure. If you live long enough, you can develop diabetes. If you live long enough, you will have high levels of cholesterol in your blood if you don’t watch what you eat. So the fact that you have two or three diseases does not stop you from living long. The most important thing that will determine what happens is compliance with medications and instructions; people don’t comply, and people have this notion that the diseases will cut their lives short. I always say no. Certainly, God does miracles, but diabetes will not disappear, nor will hypertension and high cholesterol, no matter what you do.
But it is a common notion among many people that once individuals have some particular diseases, it is a death sentence?
No, it doesn’t mean you’re going to die. The fact that you have a disease doesn’t mean you’re going to die if it is controlled. Even when you have cancer, if it’s caught early and treated, it doesn’t mean that you’re going to die. We’ve had people that have survived after cancer for more than 40 years. Even breast cancer, if it’s caught early and dealt with early, people live their normal lives. That is the problem, but when people go late, by which time the disease has spread. That is when death comes.
You said that nobody is immune from diseases. What does that mean?
As far as we’re all living, nobody is immune from diseases because we all live in this same world. The environment, genetics, and what we eat and drink all contribute to diseases. So there’s nobody immune to diseases. Even in the Bible, it’s clearly said Elisha, the man that had the twice anointing of Elijah, still died of his disease.
And it is the same man that when the corpse of a man was thrown into his mortuary, the man arose from the dead. He got up. So, he still had the anointing, but he died of his disease. It’s not the fact that you have an anointing that you can’t die of a disease. Anybody can have a disease, no matter who you are, since we’re not God.
Are there diseases that are peculiar to elderly people?
There are diseases peculiar to elderly people, diseases like high blood pressure, diabetes, cataracts, arthritis, dementia, glaucoma, and cancers. Those are diseases peculiar to the elderly, and there’s nobody who can stop them because they just depend on the environment or the individual’s body constitution. But you can control them. So that’s the only way you can. That’s by checking yourself. If you find out that you have it, then you control it with drugs or lifestyle modifications, including exercises.
How about selective deafness and old age?
The problem with selective deafness is that people don’t understand that as you get older, your hearing also goes. So, people shout, and your parents say, “Why are you shouting at me”? That’s because they’re getting deaf. The functioning of the hearing vesicles depreciates with age; that is the reason why some elderly people shout when talking with people. It is not that the elderly person was intentionally shouting. It is because the elderly person is deaf in one ear, and unless he turns the other ear to you, he might not hear you even when you shout it tomorrow. Interestingly, he gets angry, saying, “Why are you shouting at me”? Whereas he’s deaf, he won’t hear. There are so many hearing aids that can help them to hear better these days.
What are the common causes of visual impairment in the elderly? What can they do to have a dignified life despite the visual impairment?
Well, there are so many conditions, but I will just mention two or three of them. Cataracts are so common that many people have them and don’t know. In fact, me talking to you, I’ve just done cataract laser surgery on my right eye. I didn’t know I had a cataract until I started looking with one eye. And I found that I couldn’t see my grandchildren’s faces. I said, What is happening? I thought it was soap in my eyes. I had to see an ophthalmologist. He said, Oh, you have cataracts in the right eye. Now, after the surgery, I can see clearly now. It is ignoring those diseases. That’s the problem. When people ignore it or they’re ignorant about it, it becomes a problem.
Then, glaucoma blinds people without them knowing. I’ve even had relatives who are blind because of glaucoma, even as young as 45. They are blind in one eye because of glaucoma because they didn’t take care of it.
I have the elderly one at 92 who is totally blind now in both eyes, which should have been taken care of earlier. Glaucoma doesn’t tell anybody; the eyes go. The onus is on individuals to keep checking themselves and making sure that they correct what they have.
Does it mean they should do annual medical checkups? Are there particular tests you will recommend that they should regularly have done because oftentimes they are told to do annual checks but are not told exactly what should be checked?
My recommendation is that anybody from 40 years old should have annual checkups. When I say annual checkups, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t check yourself even within the year. Annual medical checkups mean checking what your cholesterol is, checking what your sugar is, checking your blood pressure, checking your kidneys, and checking your liver. Those are routine things to do at least once a year after age 40. Recently, a colonoscopy to check the gut to make sure that there is no cancer in the gut has been added to the list. Colorectal cancer is becoming more rampant because we have imbibed a westernised diet, and we don’t eat vegetables anymore. Neither do we eat our local foods that are rich in fibre, like Eba. Also, many people feed on takeout foods or junk.
What is the role of adequate rest in all of these therefore?
In fact, we can’t promote enough rest. So we as human beings should rest. If you don’t rest, you burn yourself out. If you’re a workaholic, without rest, you just pop a vessel. The problem with most of us is that even though we are getting older, we still want to do those things we used to do, say, when we were 30. And the body can’t take it. It’s like having an old cloth. An old cloth will tear by just touching the table, but a new cloth will still stand. We can’t do what we used to do at age 30 when we are now 70. It’s not possible. Your body will tell you it can’t. Like, I always ask people the question, “How do you go grey”? Why is your hair grey when you’re 70? Did you do anything to it? No. It’s telling you how long you stayed alive. That’s what it’s telling you. You can’t compare the heart of an individual that is 75 years old with the heart of, say, a 10-year-old. What the boy can do, you cannot do as an adult because the adult’s blood vessel might be already plugged with cholesterol and fat.
How do you know that you are experiencing burnout?
How do you know? Oh, you feel it in yourself. There’s nobody who’s tired who will not feel it. You can’t cheat sleep. The question of muddling sleep when you were younger – oh, don’t worry, I want to work all night. You can’t do it when you’re older. When sleep comes, it just drags you, and you sleep it off. So you have to create time to rest.
What changes should elderly people make, particularly in a bid to cope with social changes, migration, emptiness syndrome, and so on, so that all these do not have an impact on their health?
Well, anybody who says migration and japa doesn’t have an impact, he or she does not know what he’s saying. Empty nest syndrome, when your children are no more at home, is a great problem. There are so many elderly fallen, and there is no one to take care of them at home. There’s no interaction. They become lonely and depressed. Some don’t eat because they’re used to eating with their spouses. But the spouse is dead. As a result, the elderly become anaemic because the elderly cannot eat enough food as they used to eat. And they become frail and fragile and fall.
So empty nest, not eating well, and loss of spouse – all these can contribute to them becoming depressed, and they just don’t have that will to live anymore. They question themselves why they are still alive. What am I doing here? There’s no point; there’s no more life. So it’s a big problem.
In the Bodija housing estate now, there are so many empty houses. In fact, I see a lot of patients here who fell in the bathroom. Some of them were picked up from the floor long after they fell, sometimes because the bathroom door was locked. That is why I now preach that they make simple baths that are easily walkable and with non-slippery tiles for the elderly. In bathtubs, they can trip, fall and hit their heads or break a bone.
Generally, are there other social changes that they need to make?
The elderly, as they get older, go out to attend fewer social functions apart from weddings and burials; the majority will also not go for burial ceremonies of people younger than them. So, the elderly have to look for ways, maybe communal efforts like now in elderly homes and hospices, where they can interact with their group of friends. There, they can also mix with younger people who will give them new ideas and engage them in games indoors, like playing drafts and outdoor games like tennis. As a result, they become more active and more interactive with people.
Are you therefore saying that the elderly are allowed to go to clubs?
Why not? If they love clubbing and their friends are in the club. They can go there, share a pint of beer and afterwards go back home. At least they’ve interacted with their friends; there is no point sitting at home alone and then becoming lonely and depressed. If you have elderly friends and you know they go to this recreational club, they can eat suya, they can sit down and eat pepper soup with their friends, and they can gist about old times while bringing back old memories. That brings back fond memories, not just sitting down at home and getting depressed.
How about them engaging in communal service for the elderly? Is there anything that cuts them away from that?
No, they can also engage in communal service. Involvement in community activities, including different meetings like the landlord association meeting and end-of-the-month meetings to discuss what is happening in the community, can also help. It gets them out to interact more with people in the community, including their neighbours and friends. So, communal service is also good.
Mind you, for the elderly, travelling is no more fun even when they have the money. Even at the airport, it’s not easy travelling these days; consider the length of time to wait or sit during the trip. Then the cold in the place where they’re going, they don’t like it. Also, some of them don’t like it when they move from their own home; some of them become confused because of dementia. So, it takes them at least another week to settle down in a new place. Of course, falls increase because they’re not used to the terrain. So some reason why we must go back to the old communal living that we used to do.
Some schools of thought are preaching homes for the elderly coming up in Nigeria; what is your take on having homes for the elderly?
I’m part of those who are preaching having homes for the elderly, especially for those elderly who are desolate. There’s no point in leaving an elderly woman or a man to live alone with nobody to call to at night, even if he coughs or needs water. I am for homes for the elderly, provided these homes are well-arranged and well-equipped. The home will serve them better in that they will have people of their age that they can talk to, play games with and watch the TV together with. Of course, those homes should have attached nurses or carers as well as doctors that can pop in at intervals and see them. That will help, particularly if their children are not with them. It will reduce cases of falls and depression in these age groups, too.
We now see a lot of elderly carrying phones; they may even be lost in their homes. Does that have implications?
It does because they’re lonely. It’s loneliness. Those days I don’t think anybody would carry a phone and be lost on their phone because they have their children and grandchildren to play with. But now, there is nobody. So they get used to being on their phone, and they get hooked on it. It’s become an addiction.
I see some people here in the hospital, the elderly; by the time they say to call the patient in, he’s already watching a film. He’s forgotten himself. So they don’t have a choice but to go into social media. And we know what social media preaches now. It’s not healthy for anybody.
What do you mean?
Oh, social media has become something else. There are so many broken homes now because of what they see on social media.
So where do you see the elderly in Nigeria in the next decades, in terms of their ability to cope and survive living in Nigeria?
We pray that the trend of things will change. Like somebody said, in the next few decades, the extended family bond will have broken down. Cousins won’t know themselves anymore and even the elderly will be on their own despite having children who might be scattered abroad and in other cities. Even the grandchildren don’t know each other. Things are happening now that the only way parents see their children and grandchildren is through video calls. We have started diseases that were not common before in the elderly. That is why you now see people marrying their house help and impregnating their house help because there’s nobody home. That is what I called a disease of the elderly. So sooner or later, we’re going to have more problems with the elderly. You can imagine an elderly man that is 80 years old having a one-year-old child. In fact, it’s getting worse at the moment.
But at what age can Baba make a baby? Can he father a baby at 80?
A man can father a baby even at 100 years. He doesn’t need much. And there are new things now they can give to Baba to father a baby with the young girls. Since all they want to do is to acquire property. If she has a child for Baba, the son is part of that family.
We all pray to grow old, but it looks as if growing old is a challenge. What’s your take on that since we all pray to be old?
We all pray to be old. Yes, we know it’s more of a challenge now because it comes with the diseases; it comes with the Japa syndrome; it comes with the empty nest syndrome. So we all have to plan and pray for our old age.
How do you mean? Plan in what context?
One needs to plan as husband and wife to be friends for life. Even if there’s nobody, you enjoy each other’s company and enjoy the little you have with yourself. That’s the way I see it because these days a parent can’t prevent his children from migrating. These days, the younger ones, I’m sorry to say this, they are self-centred. Well, they have their own family to take care of, and they have enough problems of their own. So, you are just going to be a burden if you are not careful. So my prayer for the elderly is to be self-independent and try not to rely on your children as much as lies with you. That is my advice.
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