IMPERFECTIONS OF OLD AGE

Have you ever experienced incidents like missing a turn while driving your car or not remembering for a brief moment where you are headed while driving the car or entering your home after a long drive and finding that you have left your purse & cellphone behind in the car or worse still, you might have left them at the place you last visited. Do not worry, these are all common occurrences which are experienced even by younger people sometimes. It happens mostly because of our occasional absentmindedness or pre-occupation with random thoughts. …….. As we age, we tend to misplace things or sometimes find it difficult to recall where we have stored certain essentials in the house. This often leads to frantic searches all around the house and a big sigh of relief after they magically appear at certain obvious locations. There could also be times when we open a wardrobe or a cupboard and momentarily forget what we are looking for. The bane of forgetfulness catches us quite unexpectedly and so it becomes important to train our minds to be attentive and focused on whatever we do. We should also set aside some time for peaceful meditation to improve cognitive functions of the brain and try to lead an active social life to stimulate the brain cells to the best of our abilities. .………… Forgetting names of people you know but haven't been in touch for a while is a common failing of the elderly as also forgetting the right word to speak out in course of a conversation. These are symptoms of mild cognitive impairment and not a memory disorder caused by certain diseases like dementia. However, leaving the condition unattended is quite risky as the impairment might slowly transform into an irreversible disorder. With a mild cognitive impairment you will be able to carry out day to day tasks easily like driving a car but in case of a disorder like dementia possibility of driving a car can be ruled out completely. ………… Has it occurred to you that senior citizens including retirees have the propensity of saying the same thing again and again? Let me give you an example of a retired friend I meet on the tennis courts quite often. While doing the warm up routines before a game he would ask me once in a while if I have a problem of elevated sugar like him. I invariably reply in the positive and add that I have been taking medicine for diabetes for past several years. He would then inform me the obvious, that playing tennis regularly would help in keeping sugar levels in check. If I recall correctly, he had asked me the same question at least six times in the last two years. The repetition of the same thing by seniors is not something desirable as most people are scornful of such failings. So we should try our best to be conscious about it at all times and try to get rid of the imperfection as soon as possible. ………… Senior people have another failing which is their eagerness to talk about their own physical ailments a bit too often quite oblivious to the possibility that the listener might not be interested to hear them. A well-mannered person out of respect for elders may listen to such ramblings for some time and try to veer the conversation away to some other topic but he may lose his patience if the senior persists in bringing the conversation back to his physical problems. Some seniors also like to harp back on the past frequently and enjoy recounting their achievements or talk about certain happenings of those good old days quite unmindful whether the listener is interested or not. So it would behove an elderly person to live up to his years and try his best to understand the mood of people around him. ………… If an elderly or senior person continues with the habit of repeating the same thing like recounting an incident today and forgetting all about it and repeating it again the next day to the same set of people, it would be quite irritating to those who have to listen to him. Similarly, if a senior person goes on talking about his various physical ailments or about past achievements/incidents constantly then there is a good chance of him being dubbed as a big bore. These simple imperfections of old age can be tackled adequately enough by first recognizing that the problem exists and second by guiding one's thoughts and actions towards the corrective path as much as possible. To be honest, the younger generation do not really have the time nor the inclination to tolerate the idiosyncrasies of old people and we must accept that as an incontrovertible fact of life.