A Consultant Community Geriatrician, Dr. Olubukola Omobowale, has advised elderly people to go for yearly medical checks to prevent complications of old age-related diseases.
Omobowale of the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, Oyo State, gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Ibadan.
She said that getting yearly medical checks could help identify and reduce the risk factors for common diseases among the aging population.
“Middle-aged adults and the elderly people differ in their patterns of disease and disease presentation.
“Aging predisposes people to diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, hypercholesterolemia and dementia.
“The complications and morbidity from these diseases can be prevented, but lots of people don’t even know that they have these diseases in their bodies until they check.
“So, we encourage our elderly ones to pick a time of the year, maybe their birthdays when they can come to the hospital to do a general body checkups.
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“Early detection is key to prevent the complications band morbidity that can happen,” Omobowale said.
The geriatrician appealed to the Federal Government to create community-based geriatric centres across the country to lessen the public health burden of diseases in an aging population.
“The burden of old age illnesses is very huge; lots of our elderly are battling with one ailment or the other.
“What the government can do to help is to first of all create what I call community-based geriatric services.
“The recent move by the government to establish six geriatric centres in the geopolitical zones is laudable, but we still need community-based centres to make care accessible to our elderly people.
“Let’s make sure that in every community there is a designated place where our older people can come to and receive quality healthcare,” she said.
According to her, elder neglect have socio-cultural implications and consequences.
“We must take care of our elderly by providing quality healthcare for them.
“The implication of neglecting our older people in the society is like walking in the dark and groping.
“Elderly people are repertoires and reservoirs of indigenous knowledge.
“They know so much, and we must encourage them to share their knowledge by protecting their rights including rights to quality healthcare,” she said. (NAN)
