Comparative Approach of the Iranian and Conventional Medicine to the Geriatrics

Abstract

In  recent  years,  because  of  the  reduction  of  infectious  disease  mortality,  also  changing  age pyramid and the increase in human life expectancy, the elderly population is growing, and their medical and health needs are a more pronounced. Hence, to address this need, the field of geriatric medicine as a specialty is founded. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the comparative literature on traditional medicine and geriatric medicine in Iran. In this study, some credible Iranian traditional medicines books are evaluated including Ibn Sina’s Canon of Medicine, Hakim Arzani’s Mofareh al Gholoob, Hefz al sehat Naseri, and Baha al Doleh Razi’s Kholasasat al Tajarob and wherever possible a comparison with the conventional medical texts and articles is expressed. In all of the mentioned books, geriatric is included as a chapter and mentioned as “Tadbire mashayekh.” In this chapter a detailed description of geriatric health, nutrition, sleep, wakefulness,  proper  exercise,  and  commonly  seen  diseases,  and  their  way  of  treatment  is mentioned which may indicated to the importance of this period in humans’ lifetime in Iranian traditional medicine. Although the geriatric medicine is often thought to be a scientific result of the new medicine, but by studying the Iranian traditional medicine resources, it is revealed that in all of the listed books, there is a full description of this lifetime period, which can answer at least a part of our needs, nowadays.