“When we say “old person”, we should not understand a helpless person who needs to be taken care of. Today, the heads of state can also be considered old, who have attracted the attention of the whole world. Putin and Erdogan are over 70, Biden and Trump are over 80,” says Armen Sogoyan, Psychiatrist, Honored Member of the World Psychiatric Association, President of the Armenian Psychiatric Association, Scientific Director of the Center for Psychosocial Regulation, PhD, Associate Professor at YSMU. According to his conclusion, today in the world, older people decide what the rest of us do.
About 12 percent of the population is older, which is an average compared to countries in the region, but compared to developed countries and especially Japan, where about 30 percent of the population is over 65, the difference is striking.
As a result of advances in medical science and improvements in the general standard of living, the number of older people in the world is increasing. In this regard, taking steps to prevent dementia early can help prevent mental health problems in older people. Dementia is an acquired disease and is usually progressive, so it is important to prevent or slow progression. Mr. Sogoyan explains that as the body changes with age, so does the spiritual world, and although the soul is always young and, regardless of age, people have aspirations and a great desire to live, requirements, but there are certain problems in the brain also occur.
“When we quickly lay off a large army of people by age, there is a vacuum in their lives. He used to work, he felt cheerful, and suddenly all this was gone, if he was lucky that he had a family nearby and he could live the life of grandchildren and children, he was still able to overcome old age, and if this did not happen, the person remained with himself, began make fewer plans and TV shows become the only hope…” says the psychiatrist, saying that next year they plan to organize courses for relatives and caregivers. old people.
In Armenia, the state only deals with the issue of social protection for the elderly, providing a pension that is barely enough for food, medicine and utility bills. Questions of life and employment are left to the discretion of public organizations.
A. Sogoyan advises to change the attitude towards elderly relatives, to pay more attention to them, to encourage them to do what they love. “If you save half an hour today and don’t give it to an elderly family member or relative, then in a few years you will have to spend all day on it or you will have to look for a carer,” he warns, noting that the public perception of older people today is discrimination and a factor stigmas.
“While every older person, if he managed to live his life with understanding and is physically active, is worth its weight in gold, and those employers who have the wisdom to use the experience of older people who can be paid less than younger people will benefit,” he says, adding that scientists over 80 are more in demand in the World Psychiatric Association than young people, and still make a great contribution to the development of science. According to him, older people should demand from the family, society, state and organizations to use their great potential. “If we don’t think about old people today, then they won’t think about us,” the doctor jokingly concludes.
