How to help these seniors?

THANK you StarHealth for the column by Dr YLM on how to manage stress, and I am sure it is very helpful to many (“Tips to manage stress”, Tell Me About, Nov 13; look for Dr YLM’s columns at TheStar.com.my on Thursdays).

However, I think stress management, together with anxiety and depression, is a much more complex issue than can be dealt with through exercise, meditation and talking to empathetic friends or family members. The continuous roiling of the brain due to uncontrolled and uncontrollable life situations requires a stronger effort from society and government to deal with.

I will use an example given by a good neighbour regarding the extreme worry of a couple in their mid-70s who has been caring for a son paralysed since he was 18, due to an accident; the boy is now 45 years old. (Replace paralysis with autism, loss of sight, Down syndrome, etc, the situation could apply to so many parents.)

The stresses? The boy’s future, who will care for him when the parents are gone, where to find enough financial resources to ensure continued care, who will care for the aged couple themselves, and so on.

Many would suggest therapy, talk to psychiatrists or psychologists, but in the pressure cooker world of public hospitals, will they get the right treatment, the right therapist even? Will they just be loaded with drugs that take weeks to kick in, then turn them into zombies, and which would then take weeks to withdraw from?

Can we really tell the couple that meditation, exercise, focusing on the “now” will work?

Another case is of an old friend, a pensioner, also mid-70s, and he’s going blind; he has a jobless son who lost his lecturing position due to the Covid-19-triggered lockdowns. How do we maintain equanimity for poor souls such as these?

We need community clinics to be strategically placed, well-staffed and ready to address these growing mental illness trends – not with medication (unless there is no other way) but with easily available counselling sessions, supported by strong community service sensitive to the people’s actual needs on the grounds, and that does not attach any stigma to mental stress or indicate it is a sign of weakness.

It’s tough, and there is no end in sight as far as I can see.

TYS

Petaling Jaya

Those suffering from problems can reach out to the Mental Health Psychosocial Support Service at 03-2935 9935 or 014-322 3392; Talian Kasih at 15999 or 019-261 5999 on WhatsApp; Jakim’s (Department of Islamic Development Malaysia) family, social and community care centre at 0111-959 8214 on WhatsApp; and Befrienders Kuala Lumpur at 03-7627 2929 or go to befrienders.org.my/centre-in-malaysia for a full list of numbers nationwide and operating hours or email [e-mail].