Page 28 - seniors today August issue

Health
Don’t go loco about motion
A guide to help you better understand the most common gastrointestinal problem
affecting people in the ‘senior citizen’ bracket, by Dr Prasanna Shah
He’s 70, obsessed with ‘motion’, and will try
every remedy suggested to him, whether it is 10
glasses of warm water, a tonne of laxatives or
even squatting precariously on the commode.
We’re talking about the 2015 comedy film
Piku starring Deepika Padukone and her
hypochondriac father, Big B, who suffers from
severe constipation.
And here’s the reason the film resonated with
an unusually large audience. Constipation
is experienced by most people at some point
of time in their lives. It is common in all age
groups, but people over age 65 suffer from it the
most, making the elderly character in the film
all the more relatable to everyone.
What is constipation?
Constipation is a digestive or gastrointestinal
disorder in which you experience fewer bowel
movements or difficulty in passing stool. In
fact, according to healthcare firm Abbott’s
Gut Health Survey in 2018, nearly 22 per
cent of India’s adult population suffers from
constipation. The prevalence of constipation,
however, rises significantly with age -- some
28
estimates claim over 50% adults over 80 years
of age complain of the problem.
Why does it affect the elderly?
There are a number of age-related factors
that can cause constipation in older adults.
Elderly people are more likely to suffer from
constipation due to changes in diet, medication,
decreased mobility and intestinal motility.
The digestive system propels food through
your body — through the mouth, oesophagus,
stomach, small intestine, large intestine
including the rectum and anus, by a series of
muscle contractions. With age, this process
sometimes slows down, and this can cause food
to move more slowly, particularly through the
colon. If you suffer from constipation, you may
end up straining to pass stool which is hard and
dry, or feel that you are not able to completely
empty out your bowels.
Symptoms
If you have fewer than three bowel movements
in a week, it could be a major indicator of the
fact that you have constipation. Other symptoms
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