Sachin Desai

Gibbs (1988) reflective cycle was employed to explore a critical case study involving a senior citizen with dementia and measures to reduce caregiver burden by humour and laughter therapy. This experience highlights key themes of caregiver burden-reduction measures through humour and laughter. This problem is discussed in relation to lack of awareness about measures to reduce caregiver burden arising due to caretaking of a person with dementia. Inclusion of this therapy as a non-pharmacological method of stress management, could be useful in the guidelines for dementia care. Therefore, it is important to include training to all caregivers at home and care home setting to address the issue of caregiver burden. Keywords: Humour and laughter therapy, Caregiver burden reduction, People living with dementia

This article attempts to describe a case study of a person living with dementia, a senior citizen, who is staying with her children at home, who are her caregivers. We will critically evaluate and analyse the strengths and weaknesses of the services that have been provided to her by the Health Care Providers and will highlight the topic of Person-centred Care provided to her by her caregivers. We will be highlighting her case scenario wherein we will enlist and elaborate the details, about dementia care from the moment of receiving the diagnosis to challenges faced both by the people living with dementia (PLWD) and their caregivers, in providing care. In this article, we will compare the details about the various studies and findings in discussion and compare the caregiving practices in India and the UK. Keywords: Inclusive Practice, Personhood, CoProduction, People living with dementia

Introduction: “Old age is an incurable disease” as said by Seneca. As Sir James Sterling Ross commented, “You cannot heal old age. You protect it; you promote; you extend it”. Scientific advances have increased the life span of man. The life expectancy at birth is estimated to be 67.6 in men and 70.1 years in women in developing countries, increasing the number of old age people in the society. Aged elderly, have a number of health problems and the assessment of the problems is of utmost importance and the need of the hour. Materials and Methods: It was a cross sectional study done in field practice area of Department of Community Medicine, S.N. Medical college, Bagalkot for a duration of four months on 274 elderly participants. Data was collected using a predesigned pretested pro-forma. Morbidity pattern was assessed by clinical examination and appropriate assessment tools. Results: Majority were young old elderly, with very low levels of literacy, belonging to class IV socioeconomic class. 32.1% were unemployed, 43.4% were Below Poverty Line. Joint families were predominant among the study population i.e. 66.8%. Majority of the elderly i.e. 94.9% were living with their families. Generalized weakness, joint pain, loss of appetite were the predominant complaints beginning in the young old i.e. in 60-74years. Diabetes, Hypertension, Upper GI system morbidities, ophthalmic morbidities and Hearing impairment were very common in the old age group (75-89years). Conclusion: The young old elderly suffered from constitutional symptoms, and the old elderly suffered from non-communicable diseases. Keywords: Morbidity profile, Determinants, Elderly, Rural area.

Longevity and graceful ageing is what every elderly yearns for. With advances in better health care, better standards and newer modalities of medical expertise the elderly population is in a phase three of demographic transition and the number of elderly in India are on the rise. With increasing age comes the prospect of multiple morbidities. The current medical practice guidelines often require multiple medications to treat each chronic disease state for optimal clinical benefit and poly-pharmacy is inevitable. The multiple drugs when consumed in excess or in lesser dosage can in turn result in adverse drug reactions. An elders body responds in a different manner from the adult body mechanism especially with respect to drug-drug interactions, reduced organ functional capacities and most importantly medication non compliance due to morbidities of ageing viz. dementia, blindness, etc.  Also there is accumulation of toxic products of drug metabolism due to pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamics changes occurring with advancing age.  A Novel substitute for pill burden and poly pharmacy3 is the drug box.3 A simple, cost-effective tool for the elderly, which helps in appropriate storage of medicines having compartments which coincide with the number of days in a week or a month, with divisions as per doses. Few boxes even show the time of the day during which the drug must be taken. Drug dispensers are high tech pill boxes keep the medications locked till the time it needs to be taken, and dispenses it at the right time thus prevents drug over dosage. This is very helpful for the elderly patients who suffer from dementia and those who are on multiple drug therapies. Keywords: Drug box, Novel tool, Pill burden.

This would be the first instance where we would be using the online web-based training session for senior citizens and the caregivers to address the commonest health issues like depression, as a result of loneliness arising among the senior citizens during the lockdown period of CoVID-19 pandemic in India and the other issue is caregiver burden, stress and strain due to burnout because of continued caretaking. The article focusses on addressing the mental health issues arising in situations like the global pandemic, of CoVID-19 outbreak, among the senior residents and their caregivers. The lockdown period in India came along with mental health issues, which included depression in elderly with caregiver burnout and strain among the caregiver’s, due to excess caregiving. The above-mentioned health issues could have been addressed during the online training session. The tools involved here, would be web-based applications, conveyed through cell phones using this as a mode of delivery of the online training content, to the participants. Keywords: COVID-19, Geriatric depression scale (GDS), Zarit Caregiver burden scale (ZCBS), Web-based digital applications, Caegivers and Elders