Ageing world: Health care challenges

The world population reached 7 billion in 2012, which is 6 billion more than in 1800. This remarkable population growth is the result of several factors like advances in the medical, technological and public health systems resulting in the control and treatment of communicable diseases, the control of pandemics, the end of large-scale wars, improvements in living conditions and the revolutions in the field of agriculture. Because of all these factors, there has been a considerable improvement in the life expectancy of human beings. There is also an alarming reduction in fertility rates. The combination of declining fertility rate and augmented life expectancies has led to a change in the demographics of the population with the strata of older individuals growing faster than the younger individuals. The aging of populations is poised to become the next global public health challenge. Advances in medicine and socioeconomic development have substantially reduced mortality and morbidity rates due to infectious conditions and, to some extent, non-communicable diseases. These demographic and epidemiological changes, coupled with rapid urbanization, modernization, globalization, and accompanying changes in risk factors and lifestyles, have increased the prominence of chronic non-infective conditions. Health systems need to find effective strategies to extend health care and to respond to the needs of older adults. This review highlights the pathophysiology of aging, biological and physiological changes, impact of aging on health, epidemiological transitions, multi-morbidity in elderly and challenges for health care system