As the elderly population keeps growing there is no doubt that they will face financial, health and social issues. One issue that many elderly people are facing is the high cost of medications. Generally speaking, medications are expensive. However, the high cost of medications tends to have an effect to the elderly population more because as one gets older they are more exposed to experience a chronic illness and are more likely to consume multiple medications a day (Cavanaugh & Blanchard-Fields, 2015). It is known that the United States has one of the highest prices when it comes to prescription drugs. There are numerous factors in why the high cost of medication tends to affect the elderly. For instance, Medicare does not tend to cover
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An example of a common mental illness among the elderly population is dementia. Dementia is a syndrome that causes deterioration in memory, behavior, thinking and interferes with the performance of a person in their everyday activities (WHO, 2016). The World Health Organization (2016) has stated that about 47.5 million people worldwide are living with this disease. It has been found that many elderly are struggling with this illness and have actually had “significant social and economic issues in terms of the direct cost of medical, social, and informal care associated with the dementia” (WHO, 2016). An article by John P. Sloan (2011) states that although the elderly population takes up only 13 percent of the population today, they were accounted for 34 percent of all prescription dispense in the United States in the year 2000. Most of the top prescription drugs have been increasing in price while “The total number of prescriptions for older adults grew from 648 million in 1992 to more than 1 billion in 2000, and ballooned to almost 1.6 billion in 2010” (Sloan 2011). The cost of dementia can be expensive not just with medications but with additional cost such as …show more content…
Normally these difficult decisions are placed on the closest family the elder has which oftentimes is their children. The problem with this situation is that these children might already have a family of their own. These people are normally referred to as the sandwich generation (Riley & Bowen, 2005) because they’re stuck in between caring for their elderly parents as well as raising their children; and in some case their grandchildren. This then leads to the dilemma that has these family members asking themselves, should we spend our money on someone who has a few years to live? (Lowey, 2005). Some families, especially those who are having financial struggles begin to have a difficult time supporting their elders when they have their children to feed as well. Should they spend their money on supporting their parents who are close to their end date, or their children who have their whole life ahead of them? We are living in a society where people prioritize the life of the youth therefore, as hard as it might be, people begin to question if it 's worth attending the elderly. Another issue is physicians stating that patients are too old for surgery and refuse to give medication to them. One example of this led an elderly patient to commit suicide because he could not bare life with pain due to the doctor refusing to perform surgery or give medication (Lowey, 2005).
An example of a common mental illness among the elderly population is dementia. Dementia is a syndrome that causes deterioration in memory, behavior, thinking and interferes with the performance of a person in their everyday activities (WHO, 2016). The World Health Organization (2016) has stated that about 47.5 million people worldwide are living with this disease. It has been found that many elderly are struggling with this illness and have actually had “significant social and economic issues in terms of the direct cost of medical, social, and informal care associated with the dementia” (WHO, 2016). An article by John P. Sloan (2011) states that although the elderly population takes up only 13 percent of the population today, they were accounted for 34 percent of all prescription dispense in the United States in the year 2000. Most of the top prescription drugs have been increasing in price while “The total number of prescriptions for older adults grew from 648 million in 1992 to more than 1 billion in 2000, and ballooned to almost 1.6 billion in 2010” (Sloan 2011). The cost of dementia can be expensive not just with medications but with additional cost such as …show more content…
Normally these difficult decisions are placed on the closest family the elder has which oftentimes is their children. The problem with this situation is that these children might already have a family of their own. These people are normally referred to as the sandwich generation (Riley & Bowen, 2005) because they’re stuck in between caring for their elderly parents as well as raising their children; and in some case their grandchildren. This then leads to the dilemma that has these family members asking themselves, should we spend our money on someone who has a few years to live? (Lowey, 2005). Some families, especially those who are having financial struggles begin to have a difficult time supporting their elders when they have their children to feed as well. Should they spend their money on supporting their parents who are close to their end date, or their children who have their whole life ahead of them? We are living in a society where people prioritize the life of the youth therefore, as hard as it might be, people begin to question if it 's worth attending the elderly. Another issue is physicians stating that patients are too old for surgery and refuse to give medication to them. One example of this led an elderly patient to commit suicide because he could not bare life with pain due to the doctor refusing to perform surgery or give medication (Lowey, 2005).