Toward A National Policy On Aging

As the first of the nation's 78 million baby boomers begin reaching age 65 in 2011, they will face a health care workforce that is too small and woefully unprepared to meet their specific health needs. Retooling for an Aging America calls for bold initiatives starting immediately to train all health care providers in the basics of geriatric care and to prepare family members and other informal caregivers, who currently receive little or no training in how to tend to their aging loved ones. The book also recommends that Medicare, Medicaid, and other health plans pay higher rates to boost recruitment and retention of geriatric specialists and care aides. Educators and health professional groups can use Retooling for an Aging America to institute or increase formal education and training in geriatrics. Consumer groups can use the book to advocate for improving the care for older adults. Health care professional and occupational groups can use it to improve the quality of health care jobs.

While government officials in the 1890s claimed that forcing families to take responsibility for caring for the aged was in the interest of the elderly, Edgar-André Montigny reveals that government policy had more to with saving money than a desire to serve the aged. He provides a harsh critique of Ontario government policies toward the elderly and their families at the end of the nineteenth century and highlights similarities between what happened in the 1890s and current policy reforms in the area of long-term care. Montigny argues that government played a central role in determining how society viewed the elderly and family obligations to them. Using census data, municipal records, and institutional case files, he demonstrates that the government created and promoted an image of the aged population that bore little resemblance to reality and manipulated the concept of family obligations to justify policies to reduce social welfare costs. The effect of these policies, passed in the name of helping the elderly and their families, was almost universally negative. By dispelling the myths that continue to influence public policy concerning the aged, Montigny provides a useful warning of the negative consequences of policies that are enacted to cut costs rather than to serve the population they are supposed to help.

The WHO World report on ageing and health is not for the book shelf it is a living breathing testament to all older people who have fought for their voice to be heard at all levels of government across disciplines and sectors. - Mr Bjarne Hastrup President International Federation on Ageing and CEO DaneAge This report outlines a framework for action to foster Healthy Ageing built around the new concept of functional ability. This will require a transformation of health systems away from disease based curative models and towards the provision of older-person-centred and integrated care. It will require the development sometimes from nothing of comprehensive systems of long term care. It will require a coordinated response from many other sectors and multiple levels of government. And it will need to draw on better ways of measuring and monitoring the health and functioning of older populations. These actions are likely to be a sound investment in society's future. A future that gives older people the freedom to live lives that previous generations might never have imagined. The World report on ageing and health responds to these challenges by recommending equally profound changes in the way health policies for ageing populations are formulated and services are provided. As the foundation for its recommendations the report looks at what the latest evidence has to say about the ageing process noting that many common perceptions and assumptions about older people are based on outdated stereotypes. The report's recommendations are anchored in the evidence comprehensive and forward-looking yet eminently practical. Throughout examples of experiences from different countries are used to illustrate how specific problems can be addressed through innovation solutions. Topics explored range from strategies to deliver comprehensive and person-centred services to older populations to policies that enable older people to live in comfort and safety to ways to correct the problems and injustices inherent in current systems for long-term care.