Today, a great amount of people have learned to enjoy life once again as a senior in the community. This would speak of those in the 70’s and beyond. Life expectancy for Americans, which was a mere 49 years in 1900, has now increased to around 76 years. This we can say is due to improvements in health care, nutrition, and the overall standard of living. Not only are people living longer, but they are becoming more active in their older age, relative to elderly of the past.
More older Americans are able carry out their own “instrumental activities of daily living” (Hodes 2003) As such, the desire for life has grown and billions have been poured into longevity research, an undertaking meant to discover ways and means to extend life. A vast motivation in science has been well-funded to discover how to keep man alive longer, with its aim toward more and more years.
(Douglas 2006) There are concerns however one must view in light of this, namely, will a society with many living over a hundred years be actually as beautiful as it seems to present? The first concern would be the quality of life given that although the body may be kept health, the brain will be aging. Surely, the mind at the age of 110 is not as lucid as that of one at the age of 60. There are many diseases that correlate with the aging brain, but let us use the more common Alzheimer’s disease as an example.
This is a devastating condition that has been seen to have a profound impact on individuals, families, the health care system, and society as a whole. Demographic studies suggest that if the current trends maintain themselves, the annual number of incident cases of this disease will begin a sharp increase in the year 2030 thereabouts. (Alzheimer’s association 2009) This will be a time that people born between 1946 and 1964 will all be over 65 years.
Studies further show that by the year 2050, the number of Americans with the disease could double. Imagine these implications. It’s true that people live longer, but then what quality of life can one have if he lives 20 years more but has lost memory of his family and friends. This disease accounts for around 50-50% of cases of dementia. With increase longevity, there will be a large increase in the prevalence of the disease as people will be living to be older.
It can be such difficulty to the individual to live in a condition where for years he is grasping at memories that he cannot recall. It’s an incredible burden to the family as well, as they will now be responsible for more elderly, living longer lives, incapable of self care, and maybe even incapable of recognizing kin. Imagine a scenario where a parent is 110 years old, their child being 85 and their grandchild at 60, how would it be feasible for the turn of care to pass from parent to child in such a scenario where all are classifiable as aged.