Headline Dec. 13/ ''' OLD AGE LIFE '''

''' OLD AGE LIFE '''

TAKE THE MAGIC HOME  -from !WOW! -the World Students Society for every single conceivable discipline and subject in the world.

Oslo : Mankind's destruction caused by a nuclear war is just one ''impulsive tantrum away''. Will it be the end of the nuclear weapons, or will it be the end of us?''  

IN OLD AGE, depression has many, many personas. 

In old age, depression is one of the most prevalent and disabling conditions that plagues the society of old interns.

From the earliest descriptions of melancholia in Mesopotamian texts to Hippocrates theory of depression resulting from 'black bile', this is a disorder that has haunted the entire humanity-

Over centuries and centuries while taking on a range of different personas, so to speak. In old age, it come to stay, over power and destroy.

The World Health Organization [WHO] estimates that come 2020, depression and [old age depression] will be the second cause of disability after heart disease.

Well designed epidemiological surveys have estimated the lifetime prevalence of depression to be  11.7% among women and and 5.6% among men.   

INDIA still largely relies on the family to take care of its elderly. The strain is showing as families splinter.

The population of  Indians older than 60  has grown at twice the rate of the overall population in two years.

Over 100 million Indians are older than 60, according to the Indian government estimates. Help Age India suggests that by 2050 a quarter of the population will be over 60.

But facilities have not kept up with the population.

Old age homes still carry the stigma of abandonment and destitution. Adult day care centers are too few. Many old-age homes do not accept patients with dementia.

Physicians who do home visits are hard to find, though cataract and knee surgeries are booming. 

In India's graying cities the greatest enemy is not failing knees and clouded vision.

It is isolation.

One of the biggest hit movies in recent years in  Kolkata  is a family drama called ''Belasehe''  {''At the end of the day''} about lonely elders, busy children and relationships that are taken for granted.

It is steeped in nostalgia for my mother's grandmother's four-poster bed and the children who crowded on it in a a time before cellphones, video games and the internet.

WHAT our generations can offer our parents is money and technology. We install skype  on their phones so that they can talk to faraway grandchildren.

What did you eat today?  How is school?  

We fly back forth to do our duty. propelled by equal parts love and guilt.

An uncle pretty much commutes from New Jersey to Kolkata to arrange for his mother's cancer treatment. A grand-ant insists her grandchildren take exemplary care of her.

Her old family retainer scoffs at the face-saving lie.

One cousin flew in from Canada to research old-age homes for his 90 year old mother.

Even in her 90s she would go up and down four flights of stairs until a fall left her shaken. My cousin tried to find her place that was comfortable somewhere not too far, so that friends could visit.

She did not protest, but four days before the move, she died quietly in her own bed at home.

My mother just said : ''Thank God. She was saved.''

Simply keeping up with change can feel overwhelming. Three years into her semi-smartphone, my mother still complains,  ''Come quick, I don't understand what it just did.''

But she, too, has adapted. 

She asks me to wish a cousin ''happy birthday'' on Facebook. She uses WhatsApp as a verb. But she is still part of an analog-generation grappling with a digital world.

But Knees and frail health means that she goes out rarely, not even to vote. 

But when the  government demanded that the mobile phones be linked to the recently introduced biometric identification cards, my mother terrified about losing her phone connection, decided to go to the phone store.

No one had any idea what to do for those physically unable to go the mobile phones to register themselves. 

We rented a car for a five-minute journey and chaperoned her to the store.

The store needed her fingerprint. But in the old age, the lines get blurred. There was no clear fingerprint to be had.

My mother would have to remain in outlaw in the digital India. '''At least we are out of the house,'' she said.

The World Students Society thanks Sandip Roy. He is also the author of the novel ''Don't Let Him Know''.

With respectful dedication to all the elderly of the world, then, Leaders, Students, Professors and Teachers. See Ya all on !WOW!  -the World Students Society and Twitter-!E-WOW!  -the Ecosystem 2011 :

''' OFFSHORE '''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless