The Impact of an Aging Population on the Long-Term Care System

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The aging population comes with a number of challenges - particularly that related with the degradation of bodily functions as we age. Organ systems begin to fail, and associated medical conditions can come about. Some common ones include diabetes, hypertension, cardiac pathologies including coronary artery disease. Cognitive decline also makes normal activities difficult - Parkinson's, Alzhiemer's etc. Notice that all of these pathologies mentioned are typically long-term issues - nothing that a quick round of drugs can fix, unlike an infection, let's say.

As a result, the biggest challenge that long-term care will have is simply patient and individual resource-load. Briefly put, each patient will likely require a lot of resources over a long period of time. Although the system may be able to handle that volume of resources for one patient, it is ...