Exacerbated Aging

We live in an aging world. In North America and in Europe, mature adults living in intimate communion in family situations are not replacing themselves. There are far fewer young people than there used to be. Seniors are far more abundant than they ever were. These countries have become dependent on immigration from countries where childbearing is still high.

The irony being, of course, that the more educated and wealthy and technologically advanced a country becomes, the lower the birth rate plunges.

Third-world countries experience no such draining of the birth rate. There the very opposite situation prevails, the demographic of the young far outweighs the elderly. As the birth rate soars and better living conditions lead to greater child survival rates, the longevity levels of the elderly also rise, but they still do not live as long as their first-world counterparts.

This, even despite the fact that the first world is suffering an epidemic of obesity, leading to life-style diseases of the mature and the young as well.

New studies have concluded that an increasing number of the elderly in North America are succumbing to various types of dementia, with Alzheimer's steadily on the rise. Part of the prevalence may be due to the fact that people are simply living longer, having enjoyed better diets, better life experiences, much improved medical attention leading to a prolonged elderly life.

Yet the studies indicate that one in three seniors now dies with Alzheimer's disease or some other type of dementia.

While we're living longer, and living more healthily, we are also becoming, due to the breakdown of the body, more susceptible to dementia. Dr. Maria Carrillo, vice president of the U.S. Alzheimer's Association calls it "exacerbated aging."  She, like the association she represents, advocates for more research and support for afflicted families. "It changes any health-care situation for a family", she says.

Figures state that 30% of 70-year-olds without Alzheimer's can expect to die before reaching 80, whereas with dementia, 61% will die before 80. In the United States, 5.2-million are estimated to have Alzheimer's or some other type of dementia. By 2050 that number is expected to rise to $13.8 million. The Alzheimer Society of Canada's estimates sit at 500,000 Canadians with dementia, with numbers doubling by 2038.

Alzheimer's can be named as an underlying cause on a death certificate when it has led to respiratory failure. Alzheimer's represents the sixth leading cause of death, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Even while the prevalence of Alzheimer's is seen to be rising, the CDC finds that deaths among some of the country's other top health killers like heart disease, cancer, stroke or diabetes has fallen.

There is simply no reliable, effective treatment for Alzheimer's, accounting for its rise in both incidence and death-causative. Available drugs are only capable of temporarily easing some of the symptoms of dementia. Severe dementia can make it difficult for people to move around, or to properly swallow, raising the risk of pneumonia, one of the most commonly identified causes of death among such patients.

In 2012 the Obama administration initiated a goal to find effective treatments for Alzheimer's by 2025. Funding for research was increased. Health and long-term care services are expected to total $203-billion in 2013 in the United States, rising to $1.2-trillion by 2050, should no breakthrough in successful research occur.

Gloom.