"Reaching Health Equity is an immense yet feasible duty that requires grassroots efforts at the individual, community, and national levels." — Dr. Adam Tabriz.
The Roadmap To Healthy Aging
Healthcare Leaders Are Trying To Transform The World For The Elderly, But How?
Despite prevailing misconceptions about Aging, getting old is not a disease. Instead, it is the continuum of a natural process that every human being traverses.
What is particularly important about Aging is that as we age, we also become somewhat disease prone, not merely because our immunity may suffer as a direct consequence of Aging.
However, Aging will provide enough time for an unhealthy lifestyle to end a disease. For instance, if we continually maintain high blood cholesterol levels through poor diet, we should also expect more to suffer from coronary heart disease and heart attack as we age.
All-in-all, Aging, and disease are two different phenomena that invariably coincide. The longer we live, the more likely we will eventually suffer from some disease. In other words, the idea that someone may pass due to old age is more fictitious than substantiated.
Aging Population Is On The Rise, So Are The Impending Chronic Diseases
Today people are living longer, thanks to modern and sophisticated technologies that extend life. In fact, in the United States, the number of people aged 65 and over may double by 2040, reaching 80 million.
Reports project the majority of the latter increase to be due to the rise in life expectancy among adults aged 85 and above whom will require assistance with primary personal care. The surge will nearly quadruple between 2000 and 2040. According to a quote published by WHO: (World Health Organization)
Globally we have been very successful at adding “years to life. But, ” We have been less successful at adding “life to years.”
The elderly population is rising due to the availability of robust acute healthcare solutions. Nonetheless, the rate of chronic diseases associated with Aging is still high. That places an exponential burden on the healthcare system from a cost and resources perspective.
Roadmap To Healthy Aging Starts With Creating Health Equity
Maintaining healthy life from birth to the end is a very human right. Ideally, every individual must be able to sustain a healthy aging process.
We can achieve health equity by offering how the elderly and those with eclectic socioeconomic and geographic profiles can achieve health equity.
Creating Health Equity is a complex undertaking, particularly for ensuring a healthy life for the aging population.
Because it requires an infrastructure designed to facilitate collaboration, learning, and transparency along the stream of the workflow process, it also offers hybrid digital logistics for the modern work model and patient engagement.
Undoubtedly, we have come to a way to help people live longer. However, we often confuse the contrast between. "extending the life and extending the process of dying."
That is why we intend to genuinely extend healthy life by doubling down on high-quality Aging. By engaging all stakeholders, we must also concentrate on innovations at multiple levels and Eschelon across all sectors and disciplines.
Take Home Message
Healthcare costs are rising partly due to increasing life expectancy and the growth of the aging population.
If we fail to create a healthy aging process, we will perpetually see the healthcare system collapse and fail to offer a better life to the older and younger sectors.
Today's healthcare system lacks logistic adaptability to modern-day socioeconomic and geographic dynamics. That is even more pronounced amid the rapid surge of the aging population and the associated chronic diseases.
Therefore, until we fill the healthcare vacuum created by adding years to human life by offering solutions that will add quality life to the senior years, we will have no other option but to waste healthcare dollars.
References
- The Healthy Ageing 50: Leaders transforming the world into a better place to grow older. "The Healthy Ageing 50: Leaders Transforming the World to Be a Better Place to Grow Older." www.who.int, June 1, 2022. https://www.who.int/news-room/commentaries/detail/the-healthy-ageing-50--leaders-transforming-the-world-to-be-a-better-place-to-grow-older.
- National Institute on Aging. "National Institute on Aging." www.nia.nih.gov, January 1, 2000. https://www.nia.nih.gov/.
- Urban Institute. "The US Population Is Aging." www.urban.org. Accessed August 25, 2022. https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiatives/program-retirement-policy/projects/data-warehouse/what-future-holds/us-population-aging#:~:text=The%20US%20Population%20Is%20Aging%20%7C%20Urban%20Institute&text=The%20number%20of%20Americans%20ages,quadruple%20between%202000%20and%202040.
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