Crystal Wiggins
10/30/12
HLTH 401 – Dr. Gibbs
“The Living Old” It is sad that almost everyone loses function such as: slowly worsening vision, hearing, and arthritis. People want to live longer but chronic diseases take control of the body. As people get older they gradually lose loss of mobility. The long term effects are here and not going away. The question is how are we going to make something out of it? By the next thirty years people over sixty five will double; making about twenty percent of the population. Back in the day people died of infectious diseases and now people are dying from chronic diseases that require management over time. It is sad that when people go to the doctor it takes about fifteen minutes to tell the doctor what’s going on and what is wrong with them, when they probably only have fifteen minutes for their appointment/doctors visit. The healthcare society is only set up for acute diseases and procedures, and not set up for chronic disease. It is very sad that there are not enough people trained to take care of the elderly, as they grow older. The crises in care are making many worry. When the doctors have to make house calls to treat people because they are not movable and have loss of hearing. They want to live independently. Home care prices have gone up because medical care is not just taking blood pressure and filling up medicine boxes anymore. Some people have to deal with their problems on their own, because their families live to far way for them to live with them. Oh my goodness, one lady’s leg is so skinny it looks like it’s nothing but skin and bone. It is very sad that too many people are living with serious problems that require nurses to come over every day to help them to do everyday activities or just to help them stay alive since some of them cannot even get out of bed to do everyday activities. Some people think that their kids are there in the home to take care of them, but not the case sometimes, because they either do not have kids or their kids do not want to take care of them. People that are living longer are very needy. People with three or more daughters most likely will not have to live in any nursing home or have to pay for at home care. They can rely on their family to take care of them. It is sad when nearly sixty percent of people, who are sixty five or older, that goes in the nursing home and stay longer than six months they usually never get out. People are most likely to do better in nursing homes than stay at home because of making friends, playing games, eating good meals, taking proper medicines, and socialization. The bad side of it is they often miss their home, family, and friends. They try to be happy at nursing homes but it is difficult to do because they want to keep independence the worse. This is sad and sweet at the same time because some people go into the nursing homes for recovery after surgery, but cannot leave because of their spouse/love one has Alzheimer’s and dementia and is not able to go home. They decide to stay there and live there with their spouse/love one because they do not want to leave them alone. They also cannot imagine leaving them alone. Some do not want to live any longer but do not have a choice in the matter. It is sad that this has to happen. People fear of growing old. Some doctors sometime tell people it’s time to stop treatment and focus on comfort so they can live with family and can have a “good death”, but it is harder on them because of the pain and they will have shorter time to live. More people rather not go through all the testing and treatment because of the chances of living through them is unlikely. Also their family do not want them to suffer much more because they are already