Retirement Planning for Positive Ageing

Retirement Planning is a must for promotion of wellbeing in old age and for maintenance of healthy and productive ageing. It can also instill a sense of independence and autonomy in an older person if it is done in a right way at right time.

Found an interesting article on Retirement Planning (http://www.jagoinvestor.com/2011/03/retirement-planning-india-future.html) on Retirement Planning by Manish Chauhan at www.jagoinvestor.com. It is a must read article for both senior citizens and young professionals.

Point to reflect: What are you doing for retirement planning?

Importance of Social Interaction

Social Interaction plays an important role in maintenance of healthy and positive ageing. I have not only read about it in articles and research papers but I actually observed it when I got an opportunity to work directly with senior citizens. I found in one of my study that as compared to those elderly who preferred to stay alone at home, those who participated in social gatherings such as satsangs and recreational activities at clubs or parks and who were volunteering for some social cause were found to have  higher level of satisfaction. They also considered participation in such activities as a major source of well-being in old age.

There are both physical and psychological benefits of being socially active in old age.

According to an article titled “Older Adults and the Importance of Social Interaction” published by Yale Medical Group on their website (http://www.yalemedicalgroup.org/stw/Page.asp?PageID=STW037188) , some of the health benefits of being social in old age are:

·         Potentially reduced risk for cardiovascular problems, some cancers, osteoporosis, and rheumatoid arthritis

·         Potentially reduced risk for Alzheimer's disease

·         Lower blood pressure

·         Reduced risk for mental health issues such as depression

Some NGOs in India, who are working for the cause of elderly, are running recreational programmes for enhancement of well-being of senior citizens, which is a great initiative. More and more such programmes are required mainly in old age homes where people are found to be experiencing loneliness, alienation, lower self esteem and loss of purpose in life. Such programmes are also required for those elderly who are living alone and are experiencing empty nest syndrome.

In today’s world when people have more work and less time, involvement in social activities and interactions through recreational activities, volunteering work, second careers and pursuance of hobbies and interests is a must for senior citizens.

Point to reflect: How those elderly, who are staying alone, can be involved in social activities?

Adaptation to Retirement and its influence on Healthy and Productive Ageing

This weekend watched the movie "About Schmidt" (released in 2002, starring Jack Nicholson). This movie is about a person who recently retired from a senior position and shortly after that he lost his wife.His effort of coping with changes post retirement and due to loss of spouse has been portrayed in a very touching way. He is shown to be struggling continuously to find a purpose in life. Towards this end he took a decision to sponsor an orphan child, this not only gave him some purpose in life but also gave him the chance to share and vent his feelings through the letter to the child, which was also a way of coping with his loneliness. To me this part highlights the importance of social interaction in a person's life in old age.

An interesting fact was that inspite of his struggle with finding purpose in life and a feeling of loneliness he learns to keep himself active and fulfilled his long term wish of visiting places both new and the ones with which he had been associated in the past.

Adaptation to retirement is tough for many senior citizens as retirement brings with it, loss of a particular role and status in society,however, while working on my Masters dissertation on Retirement, along with those who faced problems in adaptation to retirement, I also came across people who have adapted well with retirement and are taking it as a new phase of life, where they can get involved in those tasks which they had not been able to do while they were working. Some such activities were: becoming an entrepreneur and taking up a second career, learning music, dance, painting, photography, going for a world tour.This, to a great extent plays an important role in maintenance of healthy and productive ageing by keeping senior citizens both physically and mentally fit and by adding some new goals and purpose to their life.

Point to reflect: How a person can successfully adapt with retirement?

Health Care of Senior Citizens

Fulfillment of health care needs of senior citizens is one of the major factors contributing towards promotion of healthy and productive ageing, especially in a country like India where population ageing is becoming a reality. Though family is the primary caregiver, government has a major role to play in the provision of such services especially for elderly belonging to lower and lower middle class.

Population ageing in India has brought with it some serious changes like increase in population of oldest old (80+), feminization of ageing, emergence of living alone among elderly as a new living arrangement and financial constraints which many senior citizens face due to improper saving for old age and due to increase in longevity. The four factors mentioned above emphasize on the fact that there is a dire need for provision of more need based healthcare services by the government to various sections of elderly population, such as oldest old (80+), older women, mainly widows, elderly living alone with little or no support from their family and elderly below poverty line.

While I was working in the UNFPA-ISEC-IEG-TISS Ageing project in which a survey was conducted on 9852 elderly residing in seven states of India, we found that there is low awareness and utilization of health related schemes such as health insurance schemes and Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana among the elderly. This was mainly due to inadequate information among elderly and wrong targeting of the schemes. All this raises demand for immediate actions to be taken by the government towards provision of effective health related schemes to elderly, especially those below poverty line. The full report is available on the UNFPA, India website, Report on the Status of Elderly in Select States of India, 2011 - http://india.unfpa.org/?publications=5828
 
Recently, during the 11th Five-Year Plan period, government has come up with The National Programme for the Health Care of the Elderly, which is an effective and useful step towards provision of preventive, curative and rehabilitative services to elderly at various levels of health care delivery system.

Along with government, civil societies have a major role to play in provision of various health related schemes by training the senior citizens to get aware of such schemes and by guiding them in availing such services.

Point to discuss: In addition to the existing schemes what steps government should take to address this issue?

Role of family in Healthy Ageing

Based on my field related experiences of working with senior citizens and my PhD work, I can say that family plays a major role in the promotion of healthy ageing. Family is not only a means of social and financial support in old age but it also acts as a primary caregiver for the elderly member.

Along with this, involvement in some recreational activities with members of the family especially children is a source of well-being for senior citizens, which not only keeps them happy and active but also instills in them a sense of satisfaction and contentment with life. The respect, love and care which the senior citizens receive in their family not only increases their self worth but also makes their life meaningful and purposeful. 

Imagine, if a senior citizen is not receiving such attention and affection from her/his children for whose settlement she/he has worked hard throughout her/his life, then how would her/his life be? Some times such extreme indifferent and negative attitude of family members towards the elderly member results in their entry in old age home or their abuse at home. It is really sad to see that this is happening in a country like India where traditionally senior citizens have been revered as God. 

However, this does not mean that all young people are misbehaving with their parents or elder member of the family. Sometimes, they are not prepared for taking care of the elderly either financially or in terms of healthcare because of their limited income and hectic work schedule. In such cases training of family members for care-giving (especially for old age related illnesses like Alzheimer and Osteoporosis) and financial planning is a must. Training on financial planning must be focused upon health care and lifestyle need related expenses of senior citizens, such as recurring (medicines, health checkups,adult diapers etc.), non recurring (assistive devices e.g: glasses,hearing aids,wheelchairs, walkers, walking sticks etc.) and emergency expenses (surgery and related medical expenses).

In your view what is family's role in a person's life?

A video on Healthy Ageing

Found an amazing video by WHO on Healthy Ageing which very beautifully highlights the demographic scenario of Ageing, emphasises on negation of stereotypes and myths about senior citizens in society and suggests some of the measures which should be taken to make Healthy Ageing possible. In a country like India, which is experiencing population ageing, such measures need to be taken both at micro and macro level which will play an important role in enhancing the well-being of elderly. Its a must watch video. However, more than watching, I personally feel that we should learn something from it and apply it in real life. What do you say?

Concept of Healthy Ageing

Topic: Concept of Healthy Ageing

My views:  Health is often considered to be related with physical and psychological fitness, however, based on my PhD work and my real life experiences of working with senior citizens, I found that healthy ageing also comprises of socio-economic well-being and spiritual growth.

Socio-economic well-being is influenced by various factors such as getting respect and importance in old age by family and society, being financially secure and being able to avail the social security benefits from government.Even World Health Organization and Biopsychosocial model of health emphasizes on the social dimension of health along with physical and psychological dimension.

Spiritual growth is mainly related to self-actualization which comes with sense of contentment and satisfaction with one's life in old age.

In my opinion healthy ageing means being physically active and mobile, having positive outlook in life,being socially and financially secure and having a sense of contentment with life, irrespective of the problem faced and dissatisfaction experienced. It is a holistic concept and it cannot be achieved by senior citizens alone until and unless, the family, civil society and government works at their end in helping the senior citizens experience this state.

Points to ponder: What is the concept of healthy ageing in your view?