News/Commentary
Each of us makes decisions every day which affect what our last years and our last hours will be like.
No, we certainly don’t have control. Many things happen no one could have done anything about. There are many ways, though, in which we can help ourselves live better, longer—-the health goal of most people closing in on 70 years of age or older.
Patients and those they are closest to have decisions to make.
Physicians and other care-givers do, too.
“Chronological age is a very imperfect determinant on which to base medical decision-making,” according to an article by Dr. William J. Hall of the Highland Hospital Center for Healthy Aging in Rochester, and quoted by Jane Brody, who is the Personal Health columnist for The New York Times. Her columns are packed with good information and equally good advice.
“The fastest-growing segment of the population consists of people over 85, and by 2050 some 800,000 Americans will have celebrated their 100th birthday.
“Doomsayers consider this a terrifying trend, bound to bankrupt Social Security and Medicare and overwhelm the ability of doctors and medical facilities to care for the burgeoning population of the oldest old.
“But there is increasing evidence that the societal burden of increased longevity need not be so drastic. Long-term studies have shown that how people live accounts for more than half the difference in how hale and hearty they will remain until very near the end.”
Source: The New York Times, August 25, 2008