Tom Murphy
RedwoodAge.com

We're living longer - much, much longer - prompting researchers to look for ways to provide better care in a cost-effective way to tens of millions of additional aging people in years to come.

Some experts expect there to be 1 million centenarians by 2050, up from just 72,000 today. The average lifespan in the US has already risen to about 77 today - 30 years more than a century ago, and the number of people over 65 is likely to double by 2030.

"Old age has become a normative stage of life," Laura Carstensen, director of the Stanford Center on Longevity, said at a recent meeting in San Francisco. Her organization has determined that improved sanitation - advances like routine garbage collections, refrigeration and  a clean water supply - have helped extend life even more than vaunted medical advances.

"You can thank your garbage collector more than your physician," she said, explaining that her center is studying other ways that technology can be adapted to help extend our lives to their natural limits.

Until now, technology has moved at its own pace, but with 78 million baby boomers at or near retirement age, "we can't allow that snail-like pace," she said at the meeting, which was cosponsored by the Journalists' Exchange on Aging and the Association of Health Care Journalists.

Care, Not Cure
Her views were complemented by Marty Lynch, CEO of Lifelong Medical Care, who noted multiple challenges in medical care, readiness and poverty levels. Today's medical system is focused on expensive technologies rather than life-long care of patients who can't always afford new treatments, he said.

"We haven't built a system that is good at the care of the chronic problems that we'll see more of as people age," Lynch said. "We have to have a system that will work with people over a lifespan."

He said that means we also need to be better at getting care to people in their homes, rather than expecting them to show up in clinics and hospitals.

Most older people in America are likely to be poor in coming years, with many falling below annual incomes of $20,000. While it may deflate the negative stereotypes of affluent, self-obsessed boomers, the growing needs of poor elders have the potential to become "the face of aging in this country," he warned.

Community health centers, mostly established to support young mothers and children since the 1970s, have become a magnet for aging boomers with medical problems. There are now about 1,000 such clinics in California alone and Lynch said they have witnessed "a tremendous rise" in the 45-60 population, with 7 percent of their patients now over 60.

Senate Attention
The Stanford center and Lynch's Berkeley, Calif.-based company aren't, of course, the only groups addressing these issues. Other groups include the Center for Aging Services Technologies (CAST), an international group that includes more than 400 tech companies, organizations, universities and government representatives; and the American Association of Homes and Services for Aging (AAHSA), with 5,800 members.

Representatives of CAST and AAHSA testified recently before the Senate's Special Committee on Aging, endorsing the increased use of technologies to help meet the needs of aging Americans.

"Over the next two decades, the United States is just one of many countries facing a doubling or even tripling of the number of people over the age of 60," Darrin Jones, an executive with Intel's digital health group, told the committee. "This demographic storm will challenge every healthcare system, industry, nation and economy as we face epidemics of chronic disease and skyrocketing healthcare costs."

The group demonstrated some of the technologies that may help, including chairs that monitor vital signs, a cane that can detect changes in gait and a computer program to enhance brain fitness.

"Technology can help older adults maintain their health and dignity," said AAHSA CEO Larry Minnix, "and allow them to live independently in their homes for longer."