Chris BeazerLive and die better, eat more & do less
February 13th 2007 10:24
Each year the Government spends millions of dollars on promoting healthy lifestyles. More exercise, better eating habits and reducing alcohol intake are the key platforms of this preventative expenditure.
Mainstream thinking indicates that expenditure of this nature will reduce the long term incidence of heart disease, stroke and obesity thus saving the Government money by reducing admissions of patients suffering from these conditions.
One of the less publicised conditions present in ever increasing numbers in Australia is dementia. According to the ABC over 1 million Australians can be considered as living with dementia, either through direct affliction from the condition or through caring for someone with the condition. The number of suffers is expected to double by 2031.
The effects on society and the health system are significant.
Do we have more sufferers of degenerative mental illness because people are living longer? Are we creating bodies that are healthy enough to live longer without taking into account the fact that physical changes to the body do not always result on commensurate changes in the brain.
Is the brain starting to die before the newly conditioned body is ready? Are the social and aggregate fiscal impacts of mental illnesses such as dementia equivalent to the costs associated with heart disease, stroke and obesity?
Do we eat well and exercise regularly in order to prepare ourselves for a long life characterised by mental illness and a long, slow decline?
If the answer is yes then we are saving money on one area of health and spending it on another, an area that is potentially taking away the dignity of the elderly and vastly impacting on their carers as well.
We should be here for a good time not a long time and enjoy ourselves and if we die of heart attacks suddenly in our 70s then it sure beats having a wonderfully healthy body when the mind is suffering for years from dementia and causing far greater problems for society at large.
Mainstream thinking indicates that expenditure of this nature will reduce the long term incidence of heart disease, stroke and obesity thus saving the Government money by reducing admissions of patients suffering from these conditions.
One of the less publicised conditions present in ever increasing numbers in Australia is dementia. According to the ABC over 1 million Australians can be considered as living with dementia, either through direct affliction from the condition or through caring for someone with the condition. The number of suffers is expected to double by 2031.
The effects on society and the health system are significant.
Do we have more sufferers of degenerative mental illness because people are living longer? Are we creating bodies that are healthy enough to live longer without taking into account the fact that physical changes to the body do not always result on commensurate changes in the brain.
Is the brain starting to die before the newly conditioned body is ready? Are the social and aggregate fiscal impacts of mental illnesses such as dementia equivalent to the costs associated with heart disease, stroke and obesity?
Do we eat well and exercise regularly in order to prepare ourselves for a long life characterised by mental illness and a long, slow decline?
If the answer is yes then we are saving money on one area of health and spending it on another, an area that is potentially taking away the dignity of the elderly and vastly impacting on their carers as well.
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Comment by evan
The extension is of healthy life not unhealthy life - a bonus for the healthy.