Hello every one. Well, it wasn't supposed to be one of the conditions of lecturing to be above the age of 70!
Showing agedness…!
I wanted to make it exciting so I thought I might fall down twice
So that you understand what is means to be old
But well, I am not that old yet…
The fact, me, standing here giving you speech, is not something you haven’t seen before...
Each and every one of you has grandfathers or grandmothers.
An interesting point is that if you raise hands now, we'll see that you have more grandmothers than grandfathers.
If you deny, those who have grandmothers, hands up….
Ok hands down Those who have grandfathers hands up… you see?
Well, that's the way it is. Women live longer and are stronger.
Women are considered weak but in fact, men are weaker
I'm serious about this; women are much stronger; they are not even comparable.
If men could give birth to a baby once then you'd understand it.
It is impossible! I promise you.
Even by artificial insemination, IVF; they can't do it.
Of course they had done it once in Korea
They had put an out-of-uterus thing but it wasn’t born
Let's get to our point
About slides and these sorts of things I can't promise you anything
Because I don’t really agree with power point.
Power point kills face-to-face and eye-to-eye contact
I never use power point.
It's a better idea to see each other and talk
And each person does it his/her way
Some people are not good lecturers like me
But you saw the first one before me; how nice she showed you the scenes.
Anyways, our topic on elderliness is something that we all know
But are not aware, don’t touch it by heart
A doctor just asked me if there are other countries in which number of the elderly is larger.
I said: yes, there are.
Those who paid attention to health
It can be Japan or the U.S.A or Netherland or Germany.
But they've thought of assumptions in advance. That's what we lack.
Of course there are many things we lack…
The first time I heard about the book fair, I went there and saw some deficiencies.
I went there again last year which was the 23rd fair, I saw the same deficiencies!
Like it's the first time it is happening
Like it's always the first time and those errors are being repeated.
There are things about the elderly which I am going to talk about but I just don't remember the data.
The consequences are coming to me.
This friend of ours Dr. Alzheimer doesn't leave me alone.
I don’t have exact numbers or data in mind to give but I know that
We have almost six million and half elders, approximately
And this will increase up to ten million by the year 2025 or 2030.
Now what have they done about this? Nothing. I assure you.
We were planning a project for an elderly research center with my colleague Dr. Malmir.
We searched a lot and thought that
In a city like this, with so many beautiful mottos, there must be many related centers.
We found out that there are seven centers which do studies on elderly issues.
Well we tried to figure out what they do in these centers.
Some of them haven’t even activated their websites yet.
Like mailbox companies, they just act as a mailbox.
In fact nothing is done for the elderly.
You can make a call to ministry of health
Coincidently, the person in charge of this, used to be my student
and I bet he won't be able to give any data about this, nothing.
I'll tell you about some of the instances.
There was an elder man in my family (family by marriage) who was aging as time passed.
Surprisingly, he played cards very well but he couldn't remember anything else.
They had a painter called "Mohamad"
They didn’t have anyone to look after this old man.
He had Alzheimer and had lost control.
This painter guy had gone there to paint the house when they asked him to take care of him for a few days.
Later on "Mohamad" became his nurse and quit painting.
He nursed him for five or six years.
In this country we don’t have anyone being trained to take care of the elderly
We tried to run a course in Azad University which faced problems claiming these people don't need it
We have training courses for kindergartens now, they have psychologists there
But for the elderly, nothing.
There used to be time when the elderly lived with families
They watched over the babies, they were respected since they were needed
Nowadays no one's left.
They send children to kindergarten. The husband works in two shifts and the wife works in one shift
And the old man or old woman just sitting there, are bored
It is increasingly becoming a new trend to keep them in Aged care centers.
Let me give you an example of a private aged care center
which charged people $2000 per month for each person
And at nights they are fastened the elderly to bed or radiator so that they won’t move.
Is it living?!
As my friend mentioned, is it a good wish or a curse "to become old?"
There is no plan for it so far.
The number is getting larger and larger
And physical problems are appearing one after another and we can't stop it.
These problems show up as we age.
There will be behavioral problems, one of them is losing spouse,
Another is the time they spent together and can't bring it back
Their friends will die one by one
There is something people wish for each other when someone dies
They say: I hope this is your last loss which means you should be the next one dying!!
How else can it be his last loss?
Since otherwise we have to witness these happenings and they can't be stopped.
They become lonely, isolated and depressed.
Due to depression, especially in our country, you'll see that Alzheimer will spread out
The media; radio or TV isn't enough.
Every person should be active, think, talk and challenge himself in situations
We didn’t teach anyone that after retiring they can still work.
Let me tell you something seriously,
I start working from 5:30 a.m. sometimes 5:15a.m. to 9:30 or 10p.m.
I learnt it myself and whenever I die, I have died young.
I'll never become old…
...don’t clap I am not done yet
You see but they haven’t taught it to others. There is nothing programmed for it.
If you ask the retired about the day they are being retired,
they'd say it's the most disastrous day cause they shouldn’t go to work anymore.
After I got retired, considering my working hours, they have become tripled.
I don’t say a hundred times more!
I reviewed my papers. They'd become more than the time I was in university.
There are things called "hobby"
We don’t know how to teach hobby to other people
We should teach them what hobbies to have
So that when they are old, they can use that hobby; to produce.
We haven’t taught when someone's retired, he still has opportunities. He should use his experience and work.
It doesn’t have to be physical work!
He should work, write, translate, communicate… we haven’t taught these.
Those who work after retirement, especially in post or telegraphing they are devastated soon
Well, have you noticed why do the mullahs live longer?
Because they make speeches every day. They preach 2 hours a day
We have good examples above one hundred years old.
We should really see what they do.
The life style my friend mentioned. What is their lifestyle?
For instance, one of them is that they don’t watch TV
Another is that they don’t have cell phones.
I myself neither have TV at home nor cell phone.
These are two of my secrets of life.
Now for all these things happening to our elderlies, in other words, to us, to you sitting here
Ladies around 20 and gentlemen between 30 to 40 years old
They never think they are going to be the elderly one day and nothing has been done for them.
They think it is enough to have saved some money by the time they become old but it is not.
There are many of them who have money but no contacts.
They have an empty life
They asked what lifestyle is.
Well this life style includes many of these.
You explained about kids very much
Whenever we see kids on the street, we feel a sort of gentleness towards them, a sort of fondness
Have you ever felt the same gentleness towards an elder person?
What about our society? Does it feel the same way?
I don’t take the public transportation but take a look in buses or trains.
Young ladies and young men are sitting but the elderly are standing holding themselves not to fall.
I mean no one gives his/her seat to them! They don’t even feel what it is.
We have no plans for them.
We haven’t thought about it not on the part of medical nor social issues.
There are old people with so low salaries that you can't even imagine.
I know it because I have been into these matters.
For instance, in 1971 in Germany where I used to study, as I was coming back to Iran,
There were some state aged care centers that I went honorary to visit some of the old patients,
There had been thought of things we can't even imagine that government has taken into consideration for them.
We have as many kids as old people.
The number of aged people is overweighting the kids so parents are told to be given prizes for having more children.
In some places the prizes are just lies! What prize? What provision? You can't even provide the milk powder.
Now what predictions have they done about this stratum? Nothing.
I didn’t get to give you any exact numbers or data but even this much is enough
To give you a flick and make you aware of what's going on.
Those who can, who are after this issue or are somehow in contact with it,
some may be writers, journalists or students try to make it happen.
When are these programmings going to start?
Especially the social points. Things that make them isolated.
There are parks where they'd go from 10a.m. and start talking.
Little by little they don’t have anything to talk about! What should they talk about?
They are there just sitting.
In some cases, the elder are brought there in the morning and taken home in the evening.
This is an elderly lifestyle and we are really losing a source of work and thought.
All experiences he had gained will be thrown away.
Anyway I hope I could tell you small points
And caused an awakening, an awareness in this case. You know what to do
The doctor just told me I couldn’t finally mention those important advices.
I told her even if you said, it made no difference
Those who are sitting here can't do anything
Those who can do something aren’t sitting here.
I have nothing more to add, hope you will all become old...