World Assembly On Aging

Contents: Introduction, Principles, Recommendations for Action, Recommendations for Implementation.

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has to say about the ageing process noting that many common perceptions and assumptions about older people are based on outdated stereotypes.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.

The United Nations Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing (MIPAA) offers a bold new agenda for handling the issue of ageing in the 21st century. It focuses on three priority areas: older persons and development; advancing health and well-being into old age; and ensuring enabling and supportive environments. This book brings together global perspectives on the MIPAA and focusses on and assesses the success and failures of governments to implement its recommendations. Despite its pivotal importance in international ageing policy, the MIPAA has been relatively neglected by academics in their writings and studies. This book mitigates this analytical and empirical cavity. Each chapter focuses on one specific geographical region and addresses five key themes: national ageing situation; twenty years of MIPAA; ensuring ageing with dignity; healthy and active ageing in a sustainable world; and priorities for the future. It presents an overall summary of the findings, future challenges and opportunities related to ageing, recommendations for future actions to be taken, and policy adjustments needed. The authors also present lessons that were learnt from managing the impact of COVID-19 on older people, together with an outlook on the most immediate priorities for the future so that the recommendations in the MIPAA are achieved in post-COVID-19 and sustainable ethical scenarios. An important contribution towards the advancement of ageing policy, the book will be indispensable to students and researchers of gerontology, ageing, and health. It will also be of interest to policy makers, geriatricians, dementia care specialists, social policy makers responsible for ensuring active and healthy ageing, and all public sector departments which have specific responsibilities towards improving the quality of life of older adults.

The United Nations World Assembly on Aging has made advancing health and well-being into old age a worldwide call for action. And this text at hand shows us what researchers worldwide are doing to answer that call. Here, three of America's most esteemed experts on aging lead a global team of contributors - each an expert in his or her country - to show us what the top challenges of each nation are, and what top research is being done there to meet those. While we cannot predict with absolute certainty all of the issues that will arise over the next 20 years, we can anticipate some and we must start now to prepare for these challenges, an expert from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services warned at a recent UN World Assembly on Aging. Needed response to the global population shift is not just the responsibility of governments, but will be a product of wise, long-term decisions made by individuals and societies, she explained. In most nations globally, populations are graying and the number of people aged 65 and older is vastly increasing, creating a larger segment of senior citizens than the world has ever before seen. Across human history, the elderly accounted for no more than 3 percent of the world population. By the year 2030, the elderly are expected to make up about 25 percent of the world population. And while longevity is of course seen as a great success, longer lifespan for such masses also creates dilemmas. For example, the incidence of dementia has already increased significantly with an 11-fold increase in people aged 65 and older in the US since the turn of the century, and a similar increase in aged people in Scotland has researchers there scrambling to find treatments for what they expect will be a 75 percent increase in dementia over the next 25 years. Chronic diseases that come with aging are already taxing health care systems in the US and around the world to Japan, with most experts aware their current health systems would be overrun and lack enough staff and facilities to handle the needs of an elderly population multiplying largely in the coming two decades. Increases in psychological issues such as dealing with the depression often striking aged people are impending, too, as are social issues such as how families, and public policies, will deal with the changing shape of the family.