Page 12 - Healthcare News Mar/Apr 2021

AGING OF AMERICA CONT’D
needed options for seniors.”
Meanwhile, besides sheer size and that sense of
independence and not wanting to rely on others, the Baby Boom generation boasts some other character- istics as well, including what could be described as denial when it comes to getting old and admitting some aspects of their health have deteriorated.
And that’s why, even though she is generally see- ing more patients than she was years ago, Dr. Susan Bankoski Chunyk, an audiologist, says she’s seeing a continuation of, and perhaps even an exacerba- tion of, an annoying trend whereby people will put off seeking help for their hearing years after they acknowledge they have a problem, due to lingering perceptions about hearing aids making people look old and feeble, even though modern technology has changed that landscape.
And that’s just one example of why there are still many question marks about how and to what degree this generation will present challenges and opportu-
disaster over which we have no control that’s going to sweep everything away,” she said. “It feels to me, and most geriatrics leaders, like we’re framing things wrong; we’re setting this up as ‘us versus them’ — us young healthy, productive people against those old people who are going to overrun the system. These people are ... us. They’re our neighbors, our teachers, our relatives.”
That said, a lot of ‘us’ are getting on in years. Indeed, maybe half or more of all Boomers can now get a senior discount at the movies, the golf course, and the pharmacy. And large numbers of them are now over 70, which means many aspects of the healthcare system — from eye care to urology; orthope- dics to hearing care — are certainly already seeing an impact, and it will only grow as more Boomers reach 70, 80, 90, and beyond.
Restating the matter (again, she doesn’t want to classify it as a
Mary Fla- hive-Dixon says most Baby Boom- ers want to age in place, in their own homes.
problem), Brennan said
the Baby Boom genera-
tion is indeed large (it’s estimated that, by 2035,
10% of the population will be
85 or older; it’s closer to 6% now), and its members are living longer than the generations that preceded them, again, because of better health and better healthcare.
“That’s not a disaster or a tsunami,” she said. “That’s one of the greatest success stories in
modern history; people are able to live longer and enjoy their lives better.”
That’s true, but so is what her mother said so often: that no one gets out of life alive.
“Some period of decline is going to occur for virtually all of us — unless we die in our sleep from
a funny heart rhythm or get hit by a truck crossing Main Street,” she told HCN. “And the causes of death in recent years have shifted; if you look back 50 or 80 years, the causes of death were frequently things like trauma, infection, death in childbirth — things that take you rather quickly when you were reasonably functional prior to that. That is no longer true. And
“That’s not a disaster or a tsunami. That’s one of the greatest success stories in modern history; people are able to live longer and enjoy their lives better.”
with the successes we’ve had, and with people living longer, they are increasingly likely to die of multiple progressing chronic diseases.”
What does all this mean? Increasingly, Brennan said, people will need more care from more people as they age and approach end of life — a team-based approach, if you will.
“We’re going to have to think about care a differ- ent way because it’s not all about the doctors and the nurses,” she explained. “People will need hands-on home care, they’ll need symptom management, they’ll need direct-care workers who are grossly underpaid and overworked, and who churn through the system, with tremendous turnover.
“We’re struggling to meet those needs now, and it’s perceived to be, and is, a major problem,” she went on. “And if we do not alter the way we are paying, recruiting, supporting, and respecting those people, it will be infinitely worse. We’re going to need to restructure things, pay people differently, and offer them different kinds of professional de- velopment and career ladders that will make those positions more attractive; otherwise, we have a self- perpetuating situation. It’s the classic axiom — the
nities moving forward.
Age-old Challenges
Before getting into any real detail about the Baby Boom generation and its advancing age, Brennan wanted to set the proper tone for the discussion.
Indeed, she told HCN that years, if not decades, of talk about a ‘silver tsunami’ have succeeded in casting discussion about the aging Boomers — and, again, she’s a proud, card-carrying member of that generation — in often-negative tones.
“This notion of the silver tsunami makes the aging of the population sound like an impending natural
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