Ageing and Disabilities

Introductions

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there were 600 million persons aged 60 and more in the year 2000, with that number expected to rise to 1.2 billion by 2025 and 2 billion by 2050. Aging can be viewed as a societal accomplishment, but it also poses a challenge in terms of health care and continuing healthy functioning for this rapidly growing population. As a result, it's critical to ensure that these extra years are not only free of chronic disease or disability, but also that mental and physical functionality is maintained. This will lessen the population's massive economic and social responsibilities. Nearly half of all health-care spending occurs after the age of 65, according to estimates.

One of the most often used expressions to describe a healthy old age is "successful aging," which was coined in the 1960s by R. J. Havighurst and defined as "adding life to the years." Throughout the decades, there was a growing recognition among biomedical experts that the quality of life may be just as significant as the number of years added to life. While a specific definition of successful aging has yet to be agreed upon, it is widely agreed that it comprises the freedom from chronic disease and the ability to operate well in old age, both physically and cognitively.

Relationship between disability and ageing

There are three kind of relationship between disability and ageing: “age-ing with disability,” which refers to people with disability thatcan age with previous health disabling conditions and thanksto the increasing of the quality of sociosanitary services andsanitary services now have an increasing of life expectancyfor people with disability, so they can age and live more years;and “disability with ageing,” which refer to ageing peoplethat become people with disability only during his/her ageingprocess, mainly due to age-related conditions [17]. Some yearslater, some authors felt the need to create a bridge between thetwo ways and have a look to the close relationship between thetwo different kinds of relationships described earlier, takinginto account the similarities between them, even if the onsetof the disabling conditions could be in different phases of life[19, 20].Aiming to clarify further these aspects, Campbell andPutnam [21] described three kinds of relationships or con-sequences between ageing and disability. A first kind ofconsequences is “disability-related secondary conditions”:people with disability can have an increased likelihood ofsecondary conditions directly or indirectly (any additionalphysical or mental health conditions that could results froma primary disabling conditions, but are not a specific featureof it), similar to those experienced by ageing people ingeneral, but they occur about 20-25 years sooner, and they areoften described as premature, atypical, and having acceleratedageing [21]. A second kind of consequences is “age-relatedconditions” that could be experienced by aging people andalso by ageing people with disability; these conditions arerelated to the aging and to the long-term effects exposureto environmental hazards, or to the effects of poor healthbehaviors. Some examples are hypertension, high choles-terol, diabetes, osteoarthritis, heart disease, gait and mobilityproblems, falls, respiratory infections/chronic obstructivepulmonary disease, urinary incontinence, osteoporosis, skindisease, hearing and vision loss, and dementia. A third kindof consequences is “Multiple Chronic Conditions,” the riskto have two or more different chronic conditions together, indyads (hypertension and diabetes), or in triads (cholesterol,hypertension, and diabetes). According to Campbell andPutnam [21], these three kinds of relationships betweenageing and disability are very closely related to one anotherand they have clear influences on health, quality of life,daily life, participation for ageing people and social costs,and subjective and objective burden for family and relatives.The authors claimed that the three kinds of consequencescould happen in people with disability or ageing people,with qualitative and quantitative differences, but also withsimilarities: persons aging with disability and older adultsshare a set of chronic conditions, both as a disability relatedsecondary conditions and as age-related chronic conditions.Moreover, people with disability could experience also age-related chronic conditions and disability-related secondaryconditions and ageing people and people with disability canhave multiple chronic conditions. So, the similarity between the two groups is more than the differences and an approachthat does not take into account these aspects could have the risk of not promoting health and wellbeing of people. Aiming to overcome these risks, the authors proposed t oclose the gap and create a bridge between ageing with disability and disability with ageing (and also between ageing and disability) and to focus attention to health promotion programs aimed to reduce the burden of chronic conditions of people ageing with disability. Most of all, the authors highlight the importance to study the relationship betweenaging and disability, according the proposed approach, andthe need to study and share information about these fieldof study and to share data and information about specificdisabling conditions

Behavioral risk factors

Physical and social exposures, including behaviors, during the life period have a significant impact on disabilities that appear later in life. resulting in an accumulation of risks as one gets older. The four main behavioral risk factors includes: smoking, excessive consumption of alcohol, poor diet and low levels of physical activity. Behavioral risk factors in midlife have been linked to good ageing and the primary prevention or delay of disability, according to research.