Strategies in traditional Persian medicine to maintain a healthy life in the elderly

Afsaneh Shakeri; Mohammad Hashem Hashempur; Alireza Beigomi; Ali Khiveh; Fatemeh Nejatbakhsh; Mohammad Ebrahim Zohalinezhad; Majid Emtiazy

doi:10.1515/jcim-2019-0273

Article

Strategies in traditional Persian medicine to maintain a healthy life in the elderly

Afsaneh Shakeri , Mohammad Hashem Hashempur , Alireza Beigomi , Ali Khiveh , Fatemeh Nejatbakhsh , Mohammad Ebrahim Zohalinezhad and Majid Emtiazy

Published/Copyright: June 19, 2020

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From the journal Journal of Complementary and Integrative Medicine Volume 18 Issue 1

Abstract

As time goes on, a greater number of people experience an age of more than 60 years old and subsequently geriatric syndromes are increasingly more common. Despite recent improvements in modern healthy living, literature on traditional Persian medicine (TPM) about the prevention and treatment of such syndromes and healthy living of the elderly is hardly known. We aimed, in this study, to explore some traditional Persian sources and briefly explain their writers' beliefs on keeping healthy living for old people. We used several TPM sources and literature, and then based on these texts, we collected issues about geriatric temperament and syndromes and classified the results including exercise, nutrition, massage, bathing, aromatherapy, and sleeping. Our search yielded some recommendations about a healthy lifestyle for the elderly, which are in fact equivalent to primary, secondary, and tertiary preventive measures in modern medicine. Our results also showed that they believed such modifications would help the elderly to improve their geriatric conditions. In general, TPM provides some pieces of advice to prevent and treat geriatric syndromes that may be helpful in practice although the scope of their effectiveness remains to be examined in carefully designed randomized controlled trials.

Keywords: elderly; exercise; nutrition; sleep; massage; traditional Persian medicine

Corresponding author: Fatemeh Nejatbakhsh, M.D., Ph.D., Department of Traditional Medicine, The School of Iranian Traditional Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Phone: +98 9126511384, E-mail: fatnejatbakhsh@gmail.com

Afsaneh Shakeri and Mohammad Hashem Hashempur contributed equally to this work.

Acknowledgment

The authors wish to thank Dr. Nasrin Shokrpour at the Research Consultation Center of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences for her invaluable assistance in editing this manuscript.

Research funding: None declared.
Author contributions: All the authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this submitted manuscript and approved submission.
Competing interests: The funding organization(s) played no role in the study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; or in the decision to submit the report for publication.
Informed consent: Informed consent was obtained from all individuals included in this study.

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Received: 2019-11-24

Accepted: 2019-12-31

Published Online: 2020-06-19

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/jcim-2019-0273

Keywords for this article

elderly; exercise; nutrition; sleep; massage; traditional Persian medicine