In our human history and in all great cultures, especially the Arab culture, loyalty, respect and appreciation for the elderly, and appreciation and reverence for those who helped us and gave us, have always had an important place. For example, God Almighty said: “And your Lord has decreed that you not worship except Him, and to parents, good treatment.” This is only a reminder and a note of the great importance of parental honor in our religion and our lives, whether we are Christians or Muslims. This is not a place to explain the importance of parental honor, as the discussion in this regard would take a long time.
The purpose of this discussion of parental honor is to talk about modern parental honor, but what does this mean?
Previously, people’s lives were difficult to reach in their fifties and sixties, but now it is expected to easily reach their eighties, and from here many concepts have emerged:
First: Adults have become vulnerable to dementia, so if your father suffers from dementia, and he tells you: You, son, must give a gift of a piece of land worth thousands of dinars to a respectable waiter in a restaurant, because he smiled at him, then obeying the father is not considered piety to him, because by doing so, he may be exposing the entire family to danger, as this land may be most of what the family owns, and it becomes a matter close to duty, and God knows best, the legal mental health quarantine on the father, in cooperation with the Chief Justice, the psychiatrist and the relevant authorities.
– Second, prevention is better than cure, as piety to parents begins from the stage before their old age in the first place.
– Perhaps encouraging your father to exercise, commit to worship and group activities, and take him to control his blood sugar and blood pressure, and encourage him to meet his friends is one of the best things you can do. Also, encouraging your mother to visit her friends and take her grandchildren to her, and motivating her to be on a diet plan and to push her to go to the gym and even bring a sports trainer to the house to help her, all of this is considered dutifulness to parents.
Of course, communicating with joint, bone and eye doctors and a psychiatrist at all times is very important, for their benefit.
Third: The psychiatrist is very important for the elderly, as he is not only for diagnosing and treating dementia, but he is also important for treating depression, stress, sleep problems, and even addiction problems for the elderly.
Fourth: Not all dementia is Alzheimer’s dementia, the most common types of dementia are: Alzheimer’s dementia, vascular dementia, Parkinson’s dementia, and mixed dementia with more than one type, and from here, we must cooperate with a neurologist and not just a psychiatrist in the issues of the elderly.
Fifth: How can there be an increase in addiction cases among adults? This is an unusual topic, as its story begins with adults’ ignorance of psychiatry. Most adults do not go to a psychiatrist if they have anxiety problems and so on, and sometimes they take sedatives without control or supervision to reduce stress and sleep. From here, the gateway to adults’ addiction to alcohol and sedatives is, in addition to their use of these substances to treat depression and so on based on their own efforts, and not based on a strict treatment plan from a good psychiatrist, who if they had gone to him from the beginning, there might not have been any reason for them to resort to addictions.
Of course, back, shoulder and neck pain in adults is very common, so their visits to orthopedists are not rare, and if orthopedists prescribe an addictive pain killer in large quantities for a long period, the elderly may enter the world of addiction because of that, and this is something we must raise awareness of.
Your ability to protect your parents proactively from addiction, by taking them to an orthopedist and a good pain doctor if they need it, and your ability to protect your parents from the aggravation of insomnia, anxiety and depression problems in coordination with an appropriate psychiatrist, all of this is excellent in the long run.
Also, urging parents to do checkups every six months with an internal medicine doctor, to make sure there is no cancer is excellent and good for them in the long run. Also, communicating with a good .nutrition expert, if necessary for their health, is important
