The world’s population continues to grow by 1 billion people every 14 years. In 1959 the population of the earth reached 3 billion, today it reaches 7.5 billion, while 2050 is expected to reach 9 billion. This striking momentum recorded by the world’s population is due to the results achieved in reducing mortality.
Both science and technology have created an excellent framework for tackling life-long diseases with highly beneficial therapies. The results of all these therapies is the increase of the average lifespan of 47 years in 1950 to reach 75 years today.
by Thanos S. Chonthrogiannis
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The deterioration of the changing demographic problem
The greatest of all these achievements is not that it has only increased life expectancy, but the conditions have been created, at least for the countries of the West and not only, where they occur serious human health illnesses in the population the technological and pharmaceutical developments succeed in significantly improving the quality of life of these patients.
The continuous improvement of the quality of life of patients is a given that is constantly reflected in the increasing number and at the same time increasing percentage of people, respectively, belonging to the middle and high age groups. That is, the ages of over 50 years and more than 80 years which are considered the most rapidly developing age groups in modern societies.
This forces scientists and social structures to focus their attention not on the growth of the population anyway but on the age structure of the world population.
This constant evolution and alteration of the demographic problem creates the emergence of a difficult manageable reality in world societies. So, given that the population belonging to the so-called third age is increasing, the consequences that appear are not only limited to the problem of fulfilling pension and social security obligations, but to increasing the frequency the emergence of chronic health problems and diseases mainly related to this age group-elderly.
This data and developments create high demands in terms of offering better health care, care and entertainment for the elderly.
So, these high demands create a field of business actions with high profit margins due to the ever-increasing specific population group, which seeks the use of such services and due to the increasing expectancy of lifetime.
In the EU, half of the population is already over 42 years, with 1 in 5 Europeans over 65 years and 1 in 20 being over 80 years old.
In China, 250 million people are over 60 years old, while by 2050 this age group is expected to reach the number of 500 million (36% of the total population of China).
In Japan, the age group of over 65 years is expected to constitute the 2030 in 1/3 of the total population.
The Innovative high technology in third-age services
This ever-increasing trend in numbers of this age group is translated on one hand as a specific evolving and sustainable market at national and global level that seeks specialized care services, but on the other hand is considered as a high burden for the state budgets of these countries, both in terms of the cost of health care & care services at home and in elderly care institutions.
Both China and Japan show a growing trend in the number of new startups using innovative technology to offer these specialised services to the elderly. Their technological achievements could be summarized:
1. In “First Aid” technological kits that include a surveillance camera incorporating voice command systems and with access to the medicines and keys that with one tap of the elderly emit an emergency signal as much to the relatives of the elderly who use these kits as to the social welfare and medical control structures in the area where the elderly reside.
2. Motion detection devices inside the house, which include automatic alert signals to the adjacent welfare structures of the area where the elderly reside, so that in case the elderly person falls into the house, they are notified these social structures in order to be able to offer immediately first aid.
3. Devices that collect the data of the biomarkers and data on the vital indicators of the elderly’s health, which devices are programmed to send this information to the responsible doctor who monitors them without the doctor having to have a permanent presence in the area of the elderly.
4. The introduction of innovative technologies in the services of occupational therapy and rehabilitation of patients using virtual reality is a fact that is increasingly helpful in the rapid rehabilitation of the patient while giving doctors the opportunity to focus solely on the treatment of their patients. In cases of skull-cerebral nature health problems the results are very good.
The human factor in the lives of older people
Most likely in the future all these innovative technological companies that offer these kinds of services will create a robot that includes all above services and even more. But the human factor will remain the most suitable for relieving elderly people suffering from loneliness, dementia, etc.
In the EU (Netherlands, France, Spain) but also in the USA (Cleveland, Ohio, California) an excellent care system for elderly people is applied to the home and elderly care institutions in which system are participating both students and elderly people.
This program was launched in 2012, and according to this is provided to housing students at no cost for them in these elderly care structures in exchange for spending 30 hours a month of their time helping elderly-lonely people earning the “good neighbour” title.
The only service that is obligatory for the participating students is only one and it concerns the preparation and serving of an afternoon meal daily (excluding weekends) to the selected seniors-elderly who have undertaken to take care according to the program.
On the one hand, participating students save large sums of money that under other circumstances would be obliged to pay for their accommodation, while developing the virtues of patience, understanding, compassion and selflessness that would be needed later as free citizens in free societies.
On the other hand the elderly and especially the lonely elderly “earn” the company and the care of young people who in other circumstances could be the grandchildren who do not have, participating with them in various events that are made for them making them feel like they belong to a real family, pushing away the depression and sadness that loneliness creates.
The combination of both the innovative technology that creates highly necessary services and the participation of the human factor based on the above program will be able to help the utmost in the care of our elderly fellow people.
