Concerned about the spate of elders’ abuse amidst neglect in the country and globally, stakeholders have come together to recommend ways that can assist the older generation to be independent in caring for themselves.
According to the World Health Organisation, elder abuse is “a single, repeated act, or lack of appropriate action, occurring within any relationship, where there is an expectation of trust, which causes harm or distress to an older person.”
The WHO notes that elder abuse could be physical, psychological, emotional, sexual, or financial, adding that it could be a result of intentional or unintentional neglect.
The stakeholders from the health and financial sector were gathered at the 2024 Healthier Aging conference hosted by the JBS Medicare Services in Lagos.
The conference which is the fifth edition was themed “Take action now for a no regrets old age” and was held at the instance of the 2024 World Elder Abuse Awareness Day.
The World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, celebrated every June 15, was initiated by the International Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse in 2006 and was adopted as a United Nations Day in 2011.
Speaking at the conference, the stakeholders emphasised the pressing need for state governments and private sector to collaborate in ensuring senior citizens have access to health facilities and can leave independently of their family members.
The Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Dr Tunji Alausa represented by the Chief Medical Director, Federal Medical Centre, Ebute Metta, Dr Damola Dada, lamented that old age ailment is a big challenge in the health sector.
While disclosing that the ministry is working to ensure enough human resources, the minister called for collaboration between the public and private sectors.
“The challenges of geriatrics, essentially non-communicable diseases, such as hypertension, diabetes, Retina diseases, cancers and all the rest of them. They are not just the challenges of geriatrics, they are also a major burden of what our healthcare system carries. And so, we dedicated a whole division specifically to take care of all things geriatrics.
“We have been encouraging a lot of our tertiary institutions in the last couple of years to actually set up geriatric centers, not just to take care of the elderly, but to also produce human resources for the country…but it’s not something that we can do alone, which is where private bodies like the JBS medical Care Services will help us undo some of these challenges. It is important that as a country, we continue to make use of the innovations, the opportunities that we have to advance the care of our very adult,” the minister said.
Corroborating what the minister said, the wife of the Ogun State governor, Bamidele Abiodun added that taking care of elders is both a religious and moral obligation.
Abiodun said, “Both religion tell us that taking care of our elders is the moral thing to do, they shouldn’t spend their old age in regrets but to know that they are valued and enjoy care. We are meant to plan for our retirement at young age, however, we must contribute to ensure that our elders are well-celebrated.
“There is need for collaboration between government and private sector. The government should prioritize policies to ensure elders welfare while private sector is to provide resources, expertise and innovative solutions to complement government efforts. I hope that we will produce a younger generation who will appreciate the old ones.
“We must invest in preventive healthcare to mitigate the effect of old age diseases. Regular heath checkups, fitness programmes and educative awareness about healthy aging. Early intervention can prevent health issues from being severe.”
Earlier in her address, the chief host and founder of JBS medical services, Dr. Olutoyin Ajala said the conference is a platform for promoting early interventions to prevent physical mental and financial decline as people get older.
According to Ajala, “the conference is drawn out of the passion to ensure that people get the right information they need so that as they are getting older, they age in good health, happiness, peace and sound mind. There are things we can do now to secure our future. That is the essence of this conference.
“There has been a pandemic of young and middle age deaths after COVID, people coming up with incurable diseases. These must be addressed.”
During the panel discussion on heart matters Dr. Toyin Majekodunmi, medical director and chief cardiology at Euracare Nigeria; Dr Afoke Isiavwe, medical director and consultant endocrinologist at Rainbow Specialist Medical Centre; Deborah Onoja, advanced specialist dietician; and Founder and medical director JBS Medical services spoke about ways of preventing heart attacks.
They raised concern on how cost of medications has gone up, and recommended preventive measures as they best way to maintain good health.
Majekodunmi gave five recommendations that could help senior citizens prevent and cope with heart attacks.
“The interplay between the current economic situation and the aging population, increasing risk factors of hypertension and diabetes is really causing a crisis right now, just as you said, I’ve had a number of my patients reach out to me over the last few months, telling me that their jobs are working for them. They are great, but they actually get into a stage where they can no longer afford them would like other alternatives, which of course, I struggled to provide because the reason why the drugs that they’re taking work so well is because they’re very effective. And I clearly would want to be in a position where I want to have as few people as possible, actually requiring these drugs.
“So, a lot of my patients who are diagnosed with high blood pressure, diabetes, I always say there are five key things that everyone needs to do to try and prevent these things from happening in the first place. The first physical exercise physical activity. 30 minutes brisk walking every day is more than enough to significantly reduce your risk of having any of the bad things that we’re talking about as high blood pressure, diabetes, cholesterol, all the different cardiovascular events, just that alone, nothing exciting
“The second thing I also mentioned to patients is your diet. So, salt intake, very important whether you’re hypertensive or not. We should all aim to reduce our salt intake to as little as possible to try and reduce the onset of hypertension or make your hypertension to be easier to control. oily foods, fatty foods, foods, increasing saturated fats, we need to reduce our intake of these sugar. Increasing our diet with fruits and vegetables again, simple things just eating salads regularly.
“So, this is just a snapshot of the simple things we can do exercise, dietary modification, and then finally if you are in a position of having hypertension and diabetes, one of the things that you can do is make sure you take your medication. Once you’ve been diagnosed with these conditions, unless a cure is developed in the near future, you are going to take these medications forever or you need constant monitoring to ensure that you are achieving the guideline limits. These are the preventive things that we can all do to make sure we have a good long-term health and a good old age.”
Speaking on the risk factors for this diabetes, Isiavwe lamented the change in diets occasioned by access to fast food and home deliveries.
She cautioned that sitting for too long now puts one at almost the same risk as smoking.
“It was thought that diabetes was very rare, in fact, non-existent in Africa. But today, the story is different. In fact, one of the risk factors for diabetes in multi ethnic society is being African in origin societies like America where you have Hispanics and the other races. Diabetes is a chronic condition
“We have what we call non-modifiable risk factors, things you can’t do anything about. You have a family history, your dad, mom, sister, cousin or grandpa that increases your risk for diabetes. As we get older, advancing age puts you at higher risk for diabetes. We’ve had about sedentary lifestyle, after COVID things changed. We have more people working from home, we have some offices where they will just do two or three physical visits a week, sitting is now the new smoking. Sitting down in your office for too long is the new smoking, so, just get moving. If you want to set your alarm, one every hour or every two hours to get up and move around to increase your level of physical activity that will reduce your chances of coming down with diabetes.
“If you’re overweight, work on your weight a combination of exercise and losing about five to 10% of your weight will reduce your risk of coming down with diabetes. If you have any of these chronic conditions – hypertension, high cholesterol, high triglyceride level, you make sure you’re taking care of yourself and you’re on target.”
Speaking on nutrition, Deborah recommended that our food should be mostly plant-based diets to prevent cardiovascular diseases.
She said plant-based diets are lowering cholesterol, reducing blood pressure and providing anti-inflammatory effects
“It’s time to plant based diet. Plant based diet is the most promising innovation, it is the most promising kind of diets that helps us to prevent the heart conditions and the potential to have conditions and cardiovascular diseases. Now, the plant-based diets don’t doesn’t mean that you have to be eating leaves, it means you have to make more plant-based food materials in your diet. This doesn’t mean that you have to stick only to materials that are not from animal origin, but consuming materials from plant processed as minimal as possible while still retaining the natural ingredients.
“So, I always advocate that in getting plant-based food sources, we have to see how to do more organic food sources and especially organic vegetable sources. This is why gardening is important to ensure that you have more vegetables every day.”
Other areas discussed at the conference were treatment and prevention of dementia, prostate cancer as well as financial planning and investment opportunities for senior citizens.
The conference was well attended by notable people who have served or still serving in the civil service and private sector including wife of a former vice president, Prof. Ekuweme.
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