The way the elderly are treated, and in some cases warehoused and medicated, rather than nurtured and listened to, is distressing.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
People are still being put into geriatric wards when they don't need it. They need treatment, not just being put into bed and fed.
You seek help from the elders. A society with elders is healthy. It's not always that way in the West.
How incessant and great are the ills with which a prolonged old age is replete.
The elderly are all someone's flesh and blood and we cannot just shut them in a cupboard and hand over the responsibility for taking care of them to the state.
Caring for an Alzheimer's patient is a situation that can utterly consume the lives and well-being of the people giving care, just as the disorder consumes its victims.
We have all witnessed, as well, family, friends, or medical workers who have chosen to provide years of loving care to persons who may suffer from Alzheimer's or other debilitating illnesses precisely because they are human persons, not because doing so instrumentally advances some other hidden objective.
I am certain no one sets out to be cruel, but our treatment of the elderly ill seems to have no philosophy to it. As a society, we should establish whether we have a policy of life at any cost.
Generally, the younger the victim, the greater the grief. Yet even when the elderly or infirm have been afforded merciful relief, their loved ones are rarely ready to let go.
The wonderful thing about modern medicine is that so many of these complaints that used to signify old age and decline can be coped with.
Old age is not a disease - it is strength and survivorship, triumph over all kinds of vicissitudes and disappointments, trials and illnesses.