According to the article, “Ten Must-Known Cancer Statistics,” almost 600,000 Americans are expected to die of cancer in 2014. Some people believe that since Alzheimer’s also has a high death rate, that the government should decrease funding for cancer in order to increase funding for Alzheimer’s. Those people say that one might want to invest further in the study of Alzheimer’s in hopes to find a cure; however, cancer already has treatments available and often can be cured. Since researchers do not seem to be close to finding a cure for Alzheimer’s and researchers continue to have success with finding cures for some types of cancer, the federal government should continue funding cancer research at the current
For our group’s final term paper, I’ve been working on the part that requires the application of Erikson’s psychosocial theory and Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model to better understand and analyze the issue of dementia on older adults. From what I have gone through researching for my parts, I found the discourse of dementia has been dominated by a “medicalized” notion of dementia. Such “medicalized” notion has presented us and the general public a gloomy view of ageing: a horrible disease that only associated with irreversible deterioration of intellectual functioning, and that “nothing can be done” to it. For me, I had been fortunate not to have any personal experiences with dementia as no one in my family had this disease, but before
In fact, opinions tend to wildly shift over the past few millennia. During the Greco-Roman period, symptoms aligning with Alzheimer’s were considered to be a normal process during aging and was expected. Pythagoras, a Greek physician who lived during the 7th century BC, divided the human life span into five separate stages, the last of which being old age, in which he claimed that “the system returns to the imbecility of the first epoch of infancy” (Feldman). With the rise of the Middle Ages came a decline in the role science played in the social context of Alzheimer’s. The church at the time asserted that “disease was a punishment for sin”, which tied into the witch hunts that were famous during these centuries (Feldman).
Brain tumors go untreated for long periods of time in the elderly. This is due to the complications in everyday tasks. If a person cannot get the doctor on their own, and they feel like they are a burden to their loved ones, they simply will not go to the doctor. The same goes for physical illnesses, they simply will not go to the
Callahan wants us to understand a new perspective of old age; we must know the meaning of the human life cycle and have limits when spending money in addition to programs to prolong life with no value (Callahan, p.592). Extended life shouldn’t be the worry, the worry should be the quality of the elderly person’s life and how one can make it better now and as painless as possible. The goal that should be in mind is to give meaning to elderly life by making it a “decent and honorable time” (Callahan,
America is seeing to many people sent to retirement homes without a second opinion (Lin, 2010, para.
Seeing as patients who are in a vegetative state cannot recover or “wake up”, choosing to prolong one’s existence for thousands of dollars a day is just plain foolish (Palmer). Families should not have to worry about financial troubles during their loved one's last days. In many states, brain death is recognized as final death, and no financial support is given from the government. Since those suffering from this condition require so much attention and expensive technology to keep them “alive”, families are left with massive medical bills that they can’t pay. Considering the patient will have to be taken off life support eventually, it is unwise to spend six and seven figure sums on something that won’t produce positive results.
It is my analysis of the financial burden and decisions we had to make for my grandmother is that as the demand increases for long-term care as the baby boomer population ages, Medicare and Medicaid will be forced to reevaluate how they pay for long-term care. Many states are not equipped to handle the comprehensive needs of this aging population (Ford, Henderson, & Handley, 2010). Also, families are forced to take on enormous financial burdens due to the lack of coverage by Medicare (Can Medicare, 2015). The are no true pros to this situation.
Anti-age medicine could be the pinnacle of biotechnology joined with advanced clinical preventive medicine. The antiaging medical model seeks to both increase lifetime together with extend health cover — the length of time that people can live productively. As a result, anti-age medication is founded on principles of audio and accountable health care bills that are in line with these utilized in different preventive health areas. Experts from the Harvard School of Public Health have discovered the anti-aging lifestyle could add 24.6 more decades of productive lifespan. They are getting themselves of the armament of state-of-the- art biomedical technologies in advanced preventive care, including early disease recognition, preventive tests,
Lastly, Butler writes that this disregard for older people or being old, affects the medical treatment of older people. Medical professionals will not treat certain problems an older person may face, or attribute a medical problem to the process of ageing. In “Elder Liberation Draft Policy Statement” by Marge Larabee, she writes about the need to change society's views on older people, and dismantle the myth that the feelings and competence of older people are not similar to those of any age. Larabee attests the discrimination of older people to the “rapidly evolving technologies [which] have lessened the value of the knowledge and experience of older adults” (572).
There has been an extensive change in the U.S. demographics within last 50 years. According to Center for Health Workforce Studies (2006), in 2020, there will be about 54 million Americans above the age of 65 years as compared to 35 million in 2000. This number is expected to rise further at the rate of 12.5% to 20%, which means by 2050 every 1 in 5 American will be above 65 years (p. 2). This exhibits how baby boomer generation will have a significant impact on the current long-term care system. Long-term care is defined as the continuum of services framed to support the needs of people with chronic health problems and physical limitations.
There are many individuals who depend on medication or require surgery to live out the rest of their lives in peace or at all, who are unable to do so because of the expensive cost of healthcare. Unnecessary deaths and worsening conditions due to the inability to afford overpriced medical care as well as denying treatment if the previous is recognized. A study showed that in a year 1 in 4 Americans, being 80,775,000 people, deny treatment due to the fact that they couldn’t afford their care, and over 45,000 people die annually due to the same cause. Even with insurance, many are unable to afford factors of their care as it does not cover everything, and most have to deal with deductibles of over $1,000. This has been happening for over a decade and though widely known is getting limited mainstream coverage and causing others to turn to other solutions.
However, this is because of the insufficient -funding for palliative care and pain management, and governments’ stubborn dependence on nursing homes, all play roles to the despair felt by many people who are seniors, bear depressing physical limitations, of afflicted with debilitating conditions. So the reason that makes patients want to die is that there is no attention to such problems as the monopoly of low-quality-nursing care and low pay of personal
Kilroy J. Oldster said “No age of life is inglorious. Youth has its merits, but living to a ripe old age is the true statement of value. Aging is the road that we take to discern our character. Fame and fortune can elude us, but character is immortal.”
Alzheimer 's Disease is a never ending blizzard; Initially, you can keep your pavement clear, until you