Healthy Aging
Seniors are at increased risk for a number of diseases and conditions including cancer, osteoarthritis, hearing loss, and dementia. Alberta researchers investigating these age-related health concerns are looking for ways we can optimize our health and reduce our risk for disease as we age.
Story by Connie Bryson/Illustrations by Laura Bifano
In 2011, the first wave of baby boomers turn 65, resulting in a growing population of seniors in Canada. People are also living longer; it is estimated that millions of us will live to at least the age of 85. These two factors are expected to put pressure on our health and social systems. Maintaining a lifetime of good health will be key to reducing our risk for disease and preventing a drain on healthcare resources as we get older.
But it won’t be easy given that the incidence of many diseases and conditions increases with age. The overwhelming message from the media seems to be that many of us are doomed to spend our final years in misery.
Stop with the gloom and doom, says Dr. David Hogan, the Brenda Strafford Foundation Chair in Geriatric Medicine at the University of Calgary, which is the first chair in geriatric medicine established in Canada. “Yes, there’s no question that seniors have more health issues than younger people, but having health issues does not preclude you from living happy, productive, and personally meaningful lives. Surveys of older people consistently show high levels of good self-perceived health. Seniors can cope very well, especially if attention is paid to developing supportive environments—housing, the design of cities, availability of care—which can make it easier for people to live fulfilling lives. We have to pay more attention to this.”
Dr. Hogan also notes that the practice of medicine will have to change to accommodate an aging population. “Diseases don’t always come one at a time—older people tend to have two or three conditions. The diseases and their therapies interact with each other,” he explains. “I think a big research push in the future will be dealing with multiple chronic conditions.
“More than anything we should not view our aging population as only a concern. Remember, aging is a lot better than the alternative. Caring for the wave of baby boomers should be regarded as a challenge and a great opportunity. All sorts of research needs to be done, which can have a beneficial impact not just on older Canadians but our young people as well. If we start now, we have time to get things right.”
Alberta researchers are meeting the challenges and capitalizing on opportunities to study various baby boomer health concerns—everything from continuing care to how mechanisms in aging cells could be used to fight cancer. The following stories present a snapshot of some of that work.
Research centres on aging
We need to know more about the link between aging and disease—that’s why research centres such as the Alberta Centre on Aging at the University of Alberta and the newly established Brenda Strafford Foundation Centre on Aging at the University of Calgary are dedicated to studying age-related diseases. By bringing researchers from different disciplines together, the centres want to find therapies to combat the various diseases that occur with aging, to promote healthy aging in Albertans, and to gain a better understanding of how aging occurs.