Elderly Health Care Needs Today Are A Lot Different Than A Century Ago

There is a pressing need to understand elderly health care needs because today these needs are a lot different than was the case a century ago. Today, old age is a major reason for deaths in the US and in fact just in the nineties, the major causes for deaths in the US were heart diseases as well as cancer, and strokes - which together accounted for almost two-thirds of all deaths amongst Americans aged sixty-five or older.

Cannot Cope

In fact, experts reckon that modern society has been unable to cope with elderly health care needs and so swift and effective action needs to be taken on this account. The sad truth is that elderly people in the US are very prone to contracting chronic diseases that will have the cumulative effect of impairing the ability of such elders to do their everyday tasks normally and routinely.

There are many statistics that point out the seriousness of the situation that in turn highlight how important is the need to address elderly health care needs. For example, in the early nineties, the elderly that suffered from chronic ailments were about thirty-nine percent. These percentages should help concerned authorities understand that elderly health care needs are such that if left untended or untreated there would be greater numbers of deaths among the aged; or at the very least, it would mean that the elderly would require urgent medical aid if they are to survive whatever ails them.

One of the most pressing of all elderly health care needs is getting home care. For those seniors that are disabled their whole lives will depend on the type of care they are provided. What's more, since the lifespan of women has grown they form a greater proportion of the elderly and in fact they also form a large part of all single households. This in turn means that elderly health care needs for women are quite different as compared with those of the male population.

However, at the same time as more and more elderly are need of health care there has been a sharp decline in the numbers of caregivers and this in turn has led to about eighty percent of elderly health care needs being provided by relatives (mostly, women) and furthermore, the type of such care given to the elderly depends to a great extent on the goodwill of the family members that are doubling as caregivers.

To ensure that people are able to enjoy better health it is important that they pay close attention to what health care provider's advice them to do. After all, if you are going through the trouble of visiting a person to get health care it only stands to reason that you pay heed to the advice they give you.