THE FACT OF THE MATTER
BY PAUL HOPKINS
My father was wont to say that “life is great, but the best part of life is being young”. He hated ageing – most of us, if we’re honest, do – and, though he kept himself in good shape, by cycling, swimming and walking into his 80s, growing old was an anathema to him.
I only mention this because news reaches me that by 2031 there will be almost a million people aged 65 or over, according to a policy briefing from Social Justice Ireland.
By the same year, around 136,000 will also have aged to 85 years or older.
Researchers are warning the demographic change could put a strain on services and infrastructure. We are ill-prepared to cope with an ageing population. That this level of population ageing will be associated with higher levels of disability and long-term ill-health and now is the time for planning and investment.
The study also found there has been a 17% reduction in the number of home help hours delivered since 2008 leaving some families struggling to cover the gaps in care for their elderly relatives.
In the countries of Asia, Africa and South America, the elderly are revered as wise and knowledgeable, and are accorded respect — most often at the top of the table of the extended family.
In the Western world, where the traditional family unit has all but disintegrated, and where family now can mean anything from an impoverished young woman struggling to bring up two children, by different fathers, on welfare, to two men adopting a baby, the extended family is becoming a memory.
For all of us this demographic transformation carries with it huge challenges, from how to care for the elderly living alone to how to pay, in a time when pensions are being wiped out, for the unprecedented numbers of over-65s, To look after them all is a tall order and carries with it pertinent responsibility, if not moral obligation.
The sharp increase in cases of dementia and Alzheimer’s is a rude reminder of what some of us may face in our latter years.
Social attitudes and government policy will have to change. If we want our twilight years to be fulfilling there will have to be a radical rethink of social policy, particularly health and education (in terms of, for example, how to care properly for those with dementia).
Until such matters are seriously tackled, I remain seriously concerned about my encroaching twilight years.
As, indeed, should you.
Wait though, there is further news. The maximum human lifespan could far exceed previous predictions, according to work that challenges the idea that humans
are approaching a hard limit on longevity. The latest research comes in response to a recent high-profile paper that concluded “maximum longevity has hit a ceiling of 114.9 years” – a claim that has prompted extraordinary levels of criticism from the scientific community. Now five separate research teams argue that there is no compelling evidence that we are approaching an upper limit on our mortality – or at the very least, that such a limit may be considerably higher than 115 years.
Prof. Jim Vaupel, a specialist in ageing at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Germany and one of the authors, says: “The evidence points towards no looming limit. At present the balance of the evidence suggests that if there is a limit it is above 120, perhaps much above – and perhaps there is not a limit at all.”
Maarten Rozing of the University of Copenhagen says there is little to suggest the existence of a “biological clock” programmed to limit the length of life. “The idea of such a clock is highly implausible but also ageing is proving to be more amenable to change than used to be supposed.”
Jan Vijg, the geneticist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York who wrote the original paper, says he accepts “absolutely nothing” in the criticisms
“It’s worse than science fiction,” he says.
It may well be science fiction to suggest that potentially, way into the future, with the advances of medicine and diet and other criteria, we could live forever.
But, even in an ideal world, would you really want to?
Surely, the fact that life is transient, that we come and we go, is intrinsic to Life itself. Part and parcel of the miracle.
Even if my late father thought otherwise …
