Geriatrics is a term used in healthcare to describe a medical care given to older individuals. According to a study conducted by Besdine (2019), older people are considered to be those above 65 years of age though a majority of them does not require geriatric care until when they attain more than 70 years. Aging is defined as an irreversible and unavoidable decline in organ or overall body functioning that takes place when one attains a particular age. Aging occurs even when an individual does not experience environmental hazards, injuries, or unhealthy lifestyles. The World Health Organization (WHO) (2021) notes that at the biological phase, aging occurs as a result of cellular and molecular damages in a specific period. These damages make the vulnerable persons loose psychological and physical capacity, increases their susceptibility to different health conditions, and eventually death.
Generally, people falling under the geriatric population have poor health outcomes. For instance, the geriatric population have a high susceptibility of developing complex health conditions termed as geriatric syndromes (WHO, 2021). These conditions mainly occur as a result of several underlying aspects, which are comprised of urinary incontinence, frailty, delirium, falls, and pressure. Other health conditions that cause poor health outcomes in the population include chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, dementia, back and neck pain, osteoarthritis, depression, and diabetes. This condition occurs gradually as the target population progress to latter years.
The geriatric population tends to experience high mortality and morbidity rates. Morbidity rates are used to determine the proportion at which chronic and acute conditions occur in a particular target group. In contrast, mortality rates assess the number of deaths occurring in a particular population. Measuring morbidity and mortality rates is a crucial process since it helps determine the severity and prevalence of a particular health condition. Approximately 12 million deaths around the world that occurred in 2017 was associated with the ageing population and this corresponds to 27.9 percent of global deaths. Population ageing was specifically linked with an increase in mortality rates in high-, upper-middle-, and lower-middle-income states (Cheng et al.,2020). In regards to morbidity rates, the percentages of people falling under the ageing category in 1990 was 6% and increased to 9% in 2017. Besides, these percentages are predicted to increase to approximately 16% by 2050 (UN, 2019).
As aforementioned, the older populations are prone to adverse health outcomes that impair their normal functioning. These individuals are exposed to different risk factors that impact their wellbeing (WHO, 2021). Older people suffer mostly from depression and anxiety conditions which are exacerbated by the following factors: chronic pain, social isolation, side effects of certain medications, increase in physical health conditions such as heart problems and Alzheimer’s condition, prolonged hospital admissions, and loss of mobility or relationships among others.
The older individuals experience significant barriers that affect their access to appropriate health care. The main barriers include: affordability which involves reduced and limited exemption allowance, existing financial situations and pension reductions, reduced access to pharmaceuticals, and increased OOP; lack of availability in terms of isolation, constraints experienced by health care staffs, lack of non-emergency ambulance services, and poor living conditions; and poor approachability characterized by poor follow-up health care, and poor hospital care services (Doetsch et al., 2017). These barriers generally result in poor health outcomes among the ageing populations.
Different programs are implemented by global organizations and even hospital settings to help the ageing population navigate through life at ease. There are many programs implemented for this purpose and the common ones are discussed below. For instance, the World Health
Organization implemented the Decade of Healthy Ageing as a result. The program is a universal collaboration that brings together civil societies, governments, professionals, global agencies, and the media to contribute in enhancing healthier and longer lives amongst the older populatiochons (WHO, 2021).
