Health and Welfare Services for the Aged

Abstract

S AGE progresses, tissues tend to dry out A and the skin tends to wrinkle; cells atrophy and degenerate; the metabolic rate is lowered; reaction time decreases; and the repair of damaged tissues is slowed up. But the aging process proceeds at a slow pace in most people. It is particularly retarded in those who live moderately and plough back into their lives some of the profits of healthful living. Excesses of drinking, eating, smoking, and worry, too little sleep, exercise, and relaxationthese are the tubercle and diphtheria bacilli, the streptococci and staphylococci of old age. These are the factors that invite premature degeneration of the mind and body. Yet these are the very factors over which everyone has considerable personal control. A second characteristic of older people is poverty. Eighty percent of those over 65 have a cash income of less than $2,000 a year; 60 percent have less than $1,000 a year. And the incidence of chronic illness, as one would expect, rises rapidly with age. That is why older people use hospitals more frequently than younger people and go to physicians more often. This compounds the economic plight of oldsters. In the last decade the rise in the cost of hospital and medical care has outstripped even the rapid rise in the overall cost of living.