HEALTH PROBLEMS IN THE ELDERLY
Abstract
Slovenian population is getting older, similarly to the ones in a developed world. Population aging leads to changes in society, social and economic relations. With aging, there is a greater need for health insurance. In old age, chronic diseases amount and that worsens an organism functional state and consequences are predominantly permanent. By decrease of mental and physical abilities, a dependency is increasing and thus a quality of life is lowered. Physical limitations are most frequently caused by movement problems found in the elderly. The quality of aging is made worse also by vision and hearing disorders and psychological changes. In health treatment of elderly, clinicians should not strive only to prolong their lives but also to improve a quality of aging. If we want to ensure a quality aging, we need to focus our activities on prevention of chronic diseases and improving the physical and psychological rehabilitation of the elderly after treatment and thus enable them to return to normal functioning, to preserve their independency and mobility till each individual’s late age. Geriatric medicine has its peculiarities which means that clinicians need to possess special skills which are nowadays rare in Slovenia. Instead of introducing special institutions for the elderly we need to improve our knowledge of disease characteristics in old age and special needs of the old population.Downloads
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