Page 10 - Healthcare News Mar/Apr 2021

AGING OF AMERICA
Wave A
Dynamics
An Aging
Baby Boomer
Population
Will Test the Healthcare System
s she talked about the massive Baby Boom generation, how its oldest members turn 75 this year, and about how almost all the Boomers could now be classified as senior citizens, Dr. Maura Brennan summoned a phase she attributed to her mother, but which she uses often
as well: “No one gets out of life alive.”
She used those words to convey the thought that, while this Baby Boom
generation may in many ways be healthier than those that preceded it
— fewer smokers and more exercisers, for example — and it has enjoyed access to better healthcare and innumerable advances in treatment, from artificial joints to improved cancer care, its members will eventually see their health decline, and they will need increasing amounts of care. And many already do.
While Brennan — a 70-year-old geriatrician and palliative-care physi- cian — says people being able to live longer is in itself a success story, it has also become a challenge, for today, and especially tomorrow.
Which brings us back to those oldest Boomers, those born just after World War II, who turn 75 this year. That’s the age when, statistically, people begin to see their needs for healthcare increase, said Brennan, add- ing that, as one might logically assume, when a large number of people hit that threshold all at once, the system will be taxed — in all kinds of ways.
“As one might imagine, it’s going to impact virtually every sector and specialty, with the possible exceptions of OB and pediatrics,” she explained. “We’re going to see increasing numbers of older people; not all those folks are going to be frail and complicated, but there will be an increasing number of people with multiple medical problems.
“The numbers and the complexity will rise,” she went on. “And it will impact every area of healthcare, with probably the biggest impact being in
By GEORGE O’BRIEN
10 WWW.HEALTHCARENEWS.COM MARCH/APRIL 2021