Our population is aging, here’s how to care for it correctly

If you go back years and years ago

healthcare systems are very good at dealing with the medical aspect of what was wrong with an individual

but neglected the unique aspects of aging. Today in the United States, we have about 62 million people over 865

And if you go back to the 1930s, that number was about 5 million people

But as the population ages, it raises issues, economic issues, recreational issues, and of course, healthcare

and of course, healthcare issues. The phenomenal success and advancement in healthcare

has created a situation where people are living now about 35 years longer than they lived 100 years ago

The bulk of people in hospitals today are older. The issue of aging is not spoken about as much as I think it should

30 years ago, if you talked about geriatric medicine, Most people would argue with you that there was no such thing Robert Butler was the first person that discussed that all the people were not treated as well as they should be We need to be thinking differently about people who are older and since that time I seen a dramatic refocus

The big issue that is being discussed is how you create an age-friendly health system

Mentation is what you do around issue, delirium and memory loss. memory loss. Intervening early is unbelievably important. Things that you can observe

if you spend a lot of time working with the person, you can anticipate that there is a problem

and you put in place the education around it. It is important that the right medications

are given that there's medication adherence, that people take their medications, not only

if people are in a healthcare facility, but also when they're at home. We have programs where

we take pharmacies to the home and provide the injections in the home. By electronic

The chronic medicine is a new field of medical care founded here at Northwell

which is the use of an implantable device in the vagus nerve which can modify and manipulate the immune system by modifying the singles drastically diminishing other illnesses without in some cases the use of medication

The field of bi-electronic medicine, we believe, has the potential to deal with a multiplicity of diseases and enhance longevity

Then there is mobility, how you get people moving, how you keep people active as active as they can be

and teach them how to be active safely without having the possibility of falls

32,000 people a year die from falls. How many of those can be prevented

If you do a lot of preliminary work with patients, you assess them carefully of the likelihood of falling

then you can dramatically prevent falls. And then what matters to you

And this is a very fundamental important one, because the history in healthcare traditionally

has been, what is the matter with you? That generates a matter. a certain kind of a response

But if you ask the question what matters to you, they talk to you about the support services that they need you get a different kind of a response And home care is now a huge part of most innovative organizations And it important for people because there a familiarity with the home It is better for their mental state

How do you educate caregivers? There are tens and tens of millions of family caregivers that are trained, but then there are probably 50 million caregivers that are home that are not trained

And many organizations are working to make family members, extenders of the professional workforce

If it is done correctly, it dramatically improves the overall physical, spiritual, emotional health of all the individuals

An age-friendly health system requires all the disciplines in a healthcare system to be more interdisciplinary

Now you draw the ogy with what we will be talking about in 20 years

will be very different than what we're talking about today. That's innovation

That's something to be proud of. That's progress