Bangalore: Longevity has increased. While many men and women live well past 80, many of them also face illness, poor memory and often loneliness.

"Physical strength need not entirely decline at 60 or even 70 and mental alertness can continue till much later... many elderly people in their 80s can be active in community service," says psychotherapist Sunanda Murthy. In fact, such activity can help them ward off senile dementia and other related mental or memory disorders.

Apart from problems related to the brain and the nervous system, much of memory loss comes about just because one ceases to rely as much on the brain as during one's professionally active years, she feels. "For 40 years or more, if you count the years in school and college as well, one relies on memory to get a lot of work done. Names, dates and numbers have to be remembered and recalled quickly. Then suddenly one day, you find the years of retirement when all you need to remember are your doctor's phone number and those of your children and grandchildren. Many elders do not try to memorise even those numbers," she says. Advocate of mind-body therapy and author Deepak Chopra refers the differences in aging in his book, Ageless Body-Timeless Mind. Apart from mlanutrition, side effects of medication and dehydration, treatable depression and inactivity make a person age faster.

"One often finds an elderly persons losing his or her spouse and then almost withering away before long. Clinical depression is often the undiagnosed cause and if treated with the use of relatively mild anti depressants can restore the quality of life and help them live some more years. Those whose children and grandchildren are far away, also suffer from depression," she says.

Geriatric specialists and psychiatrists suggest several ways in which the retired elderly can keep themselves active. They can cultivate hobbies and pastimes or join associations of senior citizens which organise several programmes. One such arranged recently was for two busloads of elders to just go around the city. For many, it was their first long outing in years and most were delighted either at seeing old landmarks or noticing new ones and trying to understand Bangalore's growth from the times of their own youth.

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