When Living 200 Year Becomes Normal - the End of Ageing (Medical Science Documentary)

Summary

Highlights

• The number of older people is rapidly increasing globally, illustrating a major demographic shift. 🌍
• Many scientists believe that halting aging could soon be possible thanks to advances in genetic and medical science. 🧬
• A healthy lifestyle including diet, exercise, and social interaction is proven to enhance longevity. 💪
• Longevity presents economic and infrastructural challenges, particularly surrounding pensions and healthcare systems. 💼
• Aging populations could become a significant economic force, driving demand for new products and services. 🔄

Key Takeaways

• Living longer is becoming more common worldwide as medical and scientific advancements continue to evolve, leading to the exciting possibility of stopping aging entirely. 🎉
• With evolving healthcare and technology, future generations might regularly see lifespans extending to 100 years and beyond. 📈
• Lifestyle choices, including a good diet, regular exercise, and maintaining social connections, play critical roles in ensuring a healthier longer life. 🍎
• Older age could become a period filled with activity and joy rather than decline, highlighting the importance of holistic health and well-being. 🏃‍♀️
• The concept of retiring at 65 may no longer be viable economically, with people living longer and pension systems feeling the strain. 💸

Overview

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction: Changing Lifespans The chapter 'Introduction: Changing Lifespans' discusses the significant increase in human longevity globally. People are now living well into their 70s, 80s, and beyond. This increase is observed worldwide, from Japan to Africa and Europe to South America. The chapter considers this change as perhaps the most radical shift since the beginning of human civilization, as the world's population dynamics are evolving at an unprecedented rate.
• 00:30 - 02:00: Demographic Shifts and Implications The chapter discusses the significant demographic changes and their implications, focusing on the aging population. It highlights data from the UN indicating that the number of older people has tripled between 1950 and 2000. It is expected to triple again in the next 40 years. The chapter also points out that in a few decades, one-third of the population in the developed world will be over 60 years old, specifically noting the demographic shifts underway in Ireland.
• 02:00 - 04:00: Advancements in Genetic Science In the chapter titled 'Advancements in Genetic Science', the discussion revolves around the potential for significant breakthroughs in extending human lifespan and possibly halting aging altogether. Some scientists are optimistic, suggesting that living beyond 100 years is just the beginning, as technology continues to take control of evolutionary processes. The field of genetics is highlighted as tremendously exciting, with experiments such as those extending the lifespan of mice by 50% without apparent signs of aging, showcasing the potential future of genetic advancements.
• 04:00 - 11:00: Healthy Living for Longevity In this chapter, the focus is on the advancements and research by scientists, doctors, and sociologists in Ireland who are studying the aging process. They aim to understand how these processes affect longevity and what this means for the future. There is an unprecedented number of people living into old age today, which presents both challenges and opportunities, often framed as either a burden or a bounty. The chapter emphasizes that we are now at a point where individuals can significantly influence their aging outcomes, making the presence of a substantial older population an important societal factor.
• 11:00 - 15:30: Social Engagement and Purpose The chapter explores the profound impact of societal changes and how they will necessitate asking fundamental questions related to longevity, retirement planning, and healthcare systems. It emphasizes the radical changes required but suggests that, with proper planning, later years in life could be highly fulfilling.
• 15:30 - 23:00: Medical Science and Aging This chapter explores the relationship between medical science and aging. It discusses how emotional, spiritual, and social well-being are important aspects of aging. The chapter also highlights the significance of spending quality time with friends, using the example of enjoying summer days at the beach as a way to enhance overall well-being.
• 23:00 - 30:00: Future of Healthcare Systems The chapter titled 'Future of Healthcare Systems' seems to reflect on personal experiences and feelings as they relate to age. The speaker expresses a sense of vitality and ambition despite acknowledging the physical limitations of aging. There is a focus on the invigoration and achievement that comes from engaging with life, symbolized through imagery such as being 'with the Sun' and 'getting into that water'. This suggests a theme of timelessness in passion and desire, irrespective of chronological age.
• 30:00 - 37:00: Economic Implications of Longer Lives The chapter discusses the significant increase in life expectancy, noting that everywhere you look, there are signs of people living longer. It emphasizes that many people today are living not only longer but also more productive lives compared to what our ancestors could have hoped for, as evidenced by the ages of people mentioned: 83, 78, 84, and 72.
• 37:00 - 45:00: The Role of Technology in Aging The chapter discusses historical perspectives on aging and life expectancy, pointing out that in 1840, the average life expectancy for lower socioeconomic classes was just 38 years. Reaching an older age was rare and seen as an impressive accomplishment. This rarity of older individuals resulted in society holding them in high esteem, valuing their wisdom and experience.
• 45:00 - 51:00: Conclusion: Embracing Longer Lifespans The mid-19th century was marked by high infant and childhood mortality rates in Europe and America, with about 50% of children dying before age 10, prompting parents to have larger families. However, living conditions subsequently improved, leading to longer lifespans.

When Living 200 Year Becomes Normal - the End of Ageing (Medical Science Documentary) Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 something extraordinary is happening on planet earth human beings are living longer than ever before [Music] from Japan to Africa from Europe to South America more people than ever before are living into their 70s 80s 90s and Beyond in what many scientists believe to be the most radical change since humans civilization began world's population is changing more rapidly than
• 00:30 - 01:00 at any other time in our history according to the UN the number of older people traveled between 1950 and 2000 and will travel again over the next 40 years in just a few short decades one-third of the developed world's population will be over 60 imagine what that will look like here in Ireland the same incredible transformation is underway half of all baby girls born this year
• 01:00 - 01:30 will live to be over 100 some scientists believe that this is just the beginning that in the not-too-distant future we will be able to halt aging entirely people can live human technology has taken the reins of evolution that speak it's tremendously exciting in the field of genetics because you can make a mouse that lives 50% longer and at that age it doesn't look like it's an old mouse it
• 01:30 - 02:00 looks like a young Mouse in Ireland scientists doctors and sociologists are trying to understand the processes affecting our age and what implications they will have for our future never before in the history of mankind happier society there are so many people have the privilege of living into old age it's either what they call a burden or a bounty and we're at a stage now where to a large degree we can influence which outcomes we have having a significant number of older people will have a huge
• 02:00 - 02:30 impact on the way society works and it'll force us to ask a number of fundamental questions do we want to live longer can we afford our pension and healthcare system what will the third age mean for you and for me radical changes will be necessary but if we plan and manage this correctly our later years could be our best years I swam because I loved it and physically
• 02:30 - 03:00 as good emotionally it's good spiritual is good everywhere in myself with my friend during the season we try and get in at least one summer day and sometimes two and to come down and the sea is kind
• 03:00 - 03:30 of pink with the Sun and to get into that water it's just it's a very good energetic enervating feeling of achievement words like old and young don't have a huge emini for me except that feeling of course that I know objectively at my age I'm considered old and I'm not quite as spry as I was but in terms of my heart and my feelings and my joys and my wishes and my ambitions an ageless I think
• 03:30 - 04:00 [Music] so we're off the doubling in the green in the green but a helmet in the Sun look around you everywhere you will see signs that people are living longer and for the most part more productive lives than our ancestors could ever have hoped for I'm 83 I'm 78 I'm 84 I'm 72
• 04:00 - 04:30 I'm thank you - so what's going on back in 1840 the poorer classes could expect to live to 38 on average anything beyond that was considered a highly unusual achievement indeed in those days there were so few older people around that society quite naturally held them in high esteem venerating them for their wisdom and experience then from about
• 04:30 - 05:00 the 1830s across Europe and America something very odd began to happen in the 1850s the infant mortality and the childhood mortality was was very very high quite a high percentage of children under the age of 10 died something like 50% or whatever so that most parents had large families to compensate for this and it was part of life at that time that people died when they were very young what happened then was that the conditions that people were living under began to improve Engineering up better
• 05:00 - 05:30 waterworks got better housing got better food that better which was a very very important aspect of it and more people began to survive childhood and this of course was a major achievement for mankind [Music] this demographic shift can be clearly
• 05:30 - 06:00 seen in a visit to a graveyard take a look at the headstones these ones are from the early 1800s look at the ages people were dying at a six year old their a 16 year old here a couple of people in their 20s over there absolutely normal for the times now look what happens from the 1840s onwards average life expectancy begins to rise and continues to do so at a remarkably
• 06:00 - 06:30 consistent rate today in Ireland women can expect to live to 81 years and men to 76 what is most interesting is that scientists believe the increase will continue at the same rate by 2040 we can expect to live to a hundred and four who knows what we might be looking at in the future so what does this mean for you at home if you were born in the 1940s you
• 06:30 - 07:00 can expect on average to live to about 70 years of age if you were born in the 1960s you should be hoping to hit 75 all things being equal and if you were born in the 1980s you should be looking for at least 80 years of life if you've just been born now then you should be planning to live to 90 100 or more clearly something
• 07:00 - 07:30 incredible is happening we are living longer than at any other time in human history the big question is why [Music] in most Western countries better diet education increasing wealth along with the improved availability and standards of healthcare have all contributed to how long we live in the current economic
• 07:30 - 08:00 climate it may seem hard to credit but on the whole our lives are better than those of our grandparents and our great-grandparents modern life is easier it's less stressful and more fulfilling with better food better hygiene and more time to relax than we ever had before this is not just a Western phenomenon a similar growth in the ratio of older to younger people is being observed across
• 08:00 - 08:30 the developing world in fact it's happening even faster there has better medical care education water systems and food chains are put in place allowing many to benefit from improved quality of life within a single generation these changes in lifespan will present a major challenge to the infrastructure of countries across the planet it's very important when talking about life expectancy to remember that when we say
• 08:30 - 09:00 people had a life expectancy of 50 in the past it meant that the average age of death was 50 people were living to 17 110 as well the difference is going to be that we're going to have an entire cohort all of whom will be 70 in 80 years of age and all at the same time that's potentially very very exciting what is even more fascinating is that many experts believe that advances in science and technology will see humans living longer than anything predicted before I think genetics is providing
• 09:00 - 09:30 more and more answers all the time to questions that have occupied philosophers for millennia you know there's a kind of a question about how far into science fiction you go and making these kinds of predictions I don't see any theoretical reason why you couldn't halt aging in its tracks it is possible that some of us living today might achieve what humans have longed for since time began immortality before we look at how aging might be
• 09:30 - 10:00 halted altogether let's first consider some ways in which we can have a direct impact on the length of our lives after decades of research scientists have confirmed six critical factors which dramatically alter the quality and longevity of life [Music] and most of the things that we know contribute to living longer can be found in a place like this good balanced diet consistent exercise friends good friends laughter sex and
• 10:00 - 10:30 happiness happy people live longer the first step to happy healthy longer life is exercise McGill ik is 84c massage all the time it's a great thing when someone says to me for energy you make in a serious if I or not no one ever says that yam the
• 10:30 - 11:00 don't agree so like you get great kick out the - no way would I be pastors because they can popular with the women too that Mick does not feel past it has probably got a lot to do with the amount of exercise he takes staying active and maintaining fitness have been clinically proven to be good not only for the body and muscles but also for our minds improving our cognitive skills and memory exercise is one of the key
• 11:00 - 11:30 factors in promoting healthy aging you don't have to spend hours in the gym a brisk walk of 10 minutes three times a week it has been shown to produce very positive effects I like good for your knees we come over we shake a leg over here I'm telling you this keeps us alive it increases your self-esteem your feeling of well-being and your sense of happiness and these are all very positive things [Music]
• 11:30 - 12:00 food is important to me I live on my own now so I cook you for myself choosing food and make you look nice in the place on the whole color combination and all that is very important the market in Dun Laoghaire is brilliant i am healthy enough in terms of my food choices i decided i wouldn't grow on a diet but what I did is I bought a smaller place and I fill the center of the place and the idea is that you have more fruit
• 12:00 - 12:30 more vegetables and then you have meat you know so I would have hopefully one or two or three vegetables per meal and then a smaller amount of meat or meat or rice or pasta and that's good and I think you can get into the habit of eating too much and equally you can get into their habit of eating of evening less and MCS decision to eat a little less than she might normally be inclined to is having a very positive impact on her health humans who do the opposite who eat more than they need find that
• 12:30 - 13:00 overeating brings on severe chronic illnesses that can drastically shorten our lives including heart disease high blood pressure and diabetes it's been estimated that about 60% of health problems in old age can be traced back to poor diet it can produce cardiac side effects weak muscles weak bones just as important as how much wheat are the food choices we make one simple rule is that the darker the fruit and vegetables the better plums blueberries broccoli cabbage are
• 13:00 - 13:30 all high in antioxidants which directly affect our cell's ability to replicate themselves people who maintain good relationships with others are 50% less likely to die young and according to new evidence social isolation can be even more harmful to your health than smoking
• 13:30 - 14:00 spending time with good friends has been shown to decrease the inflammation which cause cancer heart disease stroke and dementia the extent to which you maintain relationship with friends is vitally important to your health and your well-being and living a life with purpose with meaning having lots of have to do in a day is very important
• 14:00 - 14:30 the third age foundation in Summerhill County Meath is one of many new establishments for older people come together to enjoy their later years at old age it joins it means a lot for me because first of all who my wife died which would have been 15 years ago I got in touch with summer Hill so I won't ever fill the void but we did fill in a lot of the missing pieces if you like this more or less or nearest when you
• 14:30 - 15:00 like one of the big problems for for some older people is the tremendous loneliness when they lose their husband or their wives and that huge hole that's left in their lives it's so difficult for people to find a substitute
• 15:00 - 15:30 [Music] one of the key things is to make it easy for older people to stay socially engaged that they are there absolutely in the center of their communities that they feel that there are things they want to go to people they want to meet things they want to achieve it's an absolutely crucial part of well-being
• 15:30 - 16:00 [Music] [Applause] [Music] laughter is hugely important for health there is good evidence that it improves our immune response which is important in preventing infections arthritis cancers and heart disease in fact
• 16:00 - 16:30 hospitals in America have introduced clowns to the wards and their presence has been shown to improve the speed at which patients recover the same research has concluded that Xavier laughs can actually prevent chronic diseases like dementia and reduced the amount of time older people stay in hospital even after major surgery for those of us approaching later life this has to be good news as is the news that doing something everyone enjoys can
• 16:30 - 17:00 bring additional benefits [Music] so you think sex is the preserve of the young wrong a recent study has shown that a third of older couples have sexual activity at least once a week and a third of those engage in oral sex of course this is great news of itself but
• 17:00 - 17:30 it also helps to slow the aging process and if the reward is a few more years on this planet surely it's worth the extra happened [Music] I woke in the airport governing our party I used to do deliveries from their time I walked in the airport and that's how we met you right away we liked each other but wasn't my voice like you don't
• 17:30 - 18:00 you don't forget to pay I'm saying he's very Antonio 76 so I should feel yo when I look in the mirror I say who are you no really means just hope we want to be together and sometimes people relax like that how we're always together that we don't get fed up that time is with each other but we don't don't you go everywhere together me do everything
• 18:00 - 18:30 together I do all the washing up just on that does not turn together we sail our sex life into their brush em nicely spaced time what players are from this universe remember but it's the brings us closer together and we we have a good our laugh now and again
• 18:30 - 19:00 we have evidence that older people who continue to have an active sex life have a much better chance of remaining physically and psychologically healthy because part of being sexually active is feeling young and the evidence is really good you know if you feel young it actually has real effects on your body [Music]
• 19:00 - 19:30 the six step to a longer life is choice having the power to choose to live your life in a way that interests you too often when we hit our 60s we are forced to take a step back to limit our horizons to stop participating in society why should we have to stop working at a particular age or stop
• 19:30 - 20:00 having sex or hang up the car keys what's becoming clear to us in the scientific community is that having choice is critical for a successful and healthy later life the choice to live the way we want where we want to enjoy our friends to carry on working and to do what stimulates us who says life should end at 65 [Music]
• 20:00 - 20:30 so if we look after our diet exercise and enjoy ourselves we can add many happy years to our lives when combined with better living standards and advances in medicine these factors will see human lifespans escalate rapidly in coming decades leading many scientists to believe that the first person to live to be a hundred and fifty has already been born [Music]
• 20:30 - 21:00 but that may only be the start of it imagine for a moment that there was no such thing as old age that we could live forever even as we speak hundreds of laboratories around the world are researching this very question understanding the cause of Aging will enable us to manipulate cells so that we can stop them from aging and from dying scientists are literally this far from
• 21:00 - 21:30 finding the mythical elixir of eternal life aging is a biological phenomenon that causes people to get sick so by definition more or less it is in theory a legitimate target for medical intervention the real question then is can we actually develop medicine in the foreseeable future that will treat aging just as effectively as we can currently create infectious diseases for example
• 21:30 - 22:00 and I think yes I think there's a very good chance that we will be able to do that in the next few decades dr. Aubrey de Grey is a visionary working at the front line of genetics he and the sense foundation he runs are working to make advances in genetic science which will substantially increase the human lifespan you can think of it as simply preventative geriatrics some of the fixes will involve gene therapy they will involve actually using viruses typically to manipulate the genomic and genetic composition of ourselves some of
• 22:00 - 22:30 them will involve stem-cell therapy putting new cells into the body that have been conditioned in the laboratory so as to proliferate and differentiate into the types of cell that are not being automatically replaced by the division of stem cells that are in the body already there may also be more traditional types of medicine involved things like vaccines and regular pharmaceutical drugs and may also be surgery involved we may in some cases want to replace whole organs with organs
• 22:30 - 23:00 created using tissue engineering for example what this means in terms of how long people will actually live and I want to emphasize that I don't work on longevity I work on keeping people healthy and the longevity benefits are simply a side benefit but the consequences in terms of longevity will be determined by what we achieve with regard to causes of death that don't have to do with aging so at the moment if we calculate how long people would live if they maintain the same risk of death each year that they
• 23:00 - 23:30 have at the age of let's say 25 then we come out with numbers around a thousand years but the average lifespan and of course some people would live a lot longer than that and some people left law in Trinity College Dublin geneticists are also working to understand how genes impact on aging one approach being followed is research into why different organisms begin to die at particular points in their lives
• 23:30 - 24:00 the reason that we age the reason that organisms age is simply really that their cells undergo a process of wear and tear their cells are just biochemical machines really and like other machines their components can break down over time and it turns out that there are genes whose job it is to try and prevent that looking at the lifespans of specific animals can be very revealing the one thing that all living creatures have in common is death
• 24:00 - 24:30 but what's interesting is it strikes at different times dependent on the species the mouse dies at 3 the giraffe at 40 the dog at 18 humans manage about 80 while Darwin's turtle can live to a hundred and fifty and then there's the freshwater Hydra now as far as we know this lives forever if we could find out what makes it immortal and apply that to humans we might be able to end aging
• 24:30 - 25:00 completely one cause that geneticists have discovered to influence lifespan is food when you decrease the nutrients available to an organism it lives longer recent research has shown that if a mouse reduces its dietary intake by a third from birth it will extend its lifespan by 30% even when the same reduction in food intake is introduced halfway through the mouse's life
• 25:00 - 25:30 it still has a massive impact the mouse will live 20% longer well we don't definitively know if this applies to humans there is emerging evidence that a significant dietary restriction could extend our lifespan by five years one of the first Clues was this a fact that what's called caloric restriction or dietary restriction can increase lifespan and does it across the whole range of species from mammals to insects and worms even yeast actually if you
• 25:30 - 26:00 feed them less and they will they will live a lot longer and so we now know that actually one of the most robust ways you can get an organism to age more slowly is simply to restrict the amount of nutrients that it gets geneticists now realize that when a cell thinks food is scarce it activates genes that shift the cells focus away from growth and Inter preservation this effectively slows the aging process pharmaceutical companies are designing drugs that will fool cells into thinking that nutrients
• 26:00 - 26:30 are scarce soon living longer may involve little more than popping a pill the hope is that that by administering these kinds of drugs you may see it really significant increases in human lifespan and the hope would be that actually by blocking the cellular aging process itself in one fell swoop you actually would stop many age-related diseases so that you would have people you know who are not developing heart disease they're not developing cancers they're not developing diabetes and any of the
• 26:30 - 27:00 other and age-related diseases if in this one administration you block aging itself as advances in genetic science continue to be made we may soon be able to manipulate organs and cells making them renew themselves instead of aging the future may bring some very surprising results with some treatments making it impossible to tell a person's age the little girl next door
• 27:00 - 27:30 could be a lot older than you think [Music] the human race is going through a radical transformation people are living longer and fuller lives and pretty soon genetic treatments may allow us to live even longer than could ever have been previously imagined all of this will have major implications for how we work
• 27:30 - 28:00 when we retire and how we manage health care what if we crack the cause of Aging and can modify the aging process so that we're all living significantly longer think of the demographic change the majority of people living will be over the age of 60 this will require a fundamental change in the structure of our society the question is are we ready for this in his early 70s
• 28:00 - 28:30 Michael represents the average pension in the early years of the 20th century there would have been 22 people of working age paying taxes towards Michael's state pension his health care costs and any other social services he might expect that was then if we fast-forward to the present day we find that this ratio has changed dramatically today there are only six people of working age paying taxes to support all of Michael's needs in the next few
• 28:30 - 29:00 decades as more and more people live longer the ratio will drop to two to one of course this is not sustainable the time has come to take a whole fresh look at pensions retirement and at the way we work the way society currently functions most of us begin our careers in our mid-20s and continue up to 65 when we expect to retire with a good pension but with an
• 29:00 - 29:30 exponentially expanding older society public pensions will simply be unaffordable when state pensions were first introduced on a universal basis few people were expected to live to retirement age today as we've seen most people can expect to live well beyond 65 [Music] 65 was picked as their parameter for aging by bhisma back in the 19th century
• 29:30 - 30:00 when he introduced pensions in Germany because he realized that very few people would live to be 65 so he wouldn't have to pay many pensions and we become stuck with this concept of retiring at 65 and that is for somehow or other life changes dramatically in some way this should not be the case one of the reasons that states throughout the world are arguing that pension ages have to rise is as people are living longer and longer they're spending a bigger proportion of their lives in retirement
• 30:00 - 30:30 and of course the the cost of that per individual increases you go back to about 2005 state spending on old-age Social Welfare pensions amounted to about 3% of gross national product now we estimated by 2050 that percentage will be over 9% a very very significant increase in the burden the social welfare burden so there's ultimately a choice here for society do you want to raise taxes and for the state to carry on paying all those pensions or do you increasingly want to say to people know
• 30:30 - 31:00 that the state will look after you to a certain degree but after a certain point you're on your own [Music] think of the value that older people can bring to the workforce think of the sheer wealth of knowledge they have accumulated across a lifetime as we get older our speed and reaction capabilities decrease but there is a lot to be said for the expression wise old
• 31:00 - 31:30 owl her name is Patrick a Suri there were 78 on the 7th of March of this year I can't see much that result I still think I can do the things they did 25 years ago and I try to do the things I've been 25 years ago that's what keeps you going so that's the fact another each word I know I've no intention to Authority it was employed here 2003 as a part-time worker think you suit me for him that
• 31:30 - 32:00 respect the forward hours a day 10 o'clock to 11 that suits me fine P and Q are blazing a trail 1/4 of their employees are over 50 in the UK their oldest worker is 95 alder workers are regarded as highly reliable they're very loyal they have a tremendous amount of experience for example managerial
• 32:00 - 32:30 expertise does not diminish with age and also older people have a very good effect on the younger workforce there are kind of a stabilizing influence I got a great sense of enjoyment out of all same feel physically fit physically able to continue honest I have somebody come along and said to me are finishing tomorrow I probably disputed because I
• 32:30 - 33:00 feel as if they're not I did ago I've heard there was the secret : the party is still working happily and productively at the age of 78 should not be surprising really careful music with the ringing of a bell in the back of my mind we're not surprised to see iconic figures in the fields of arts and
• 33:00 - 33:30 media working long after people in other areas have retired why should this not be the case in the fields of Education social services law business management where older people could be an incredible asset other countries around the world have already begun to change their approach in Japan which faces a similar situation to Ireland 5% of over 90s are still at work
• 33:30 - 34:00 and in Holland 65% of grandmothers and 60% of grandfathers provide child care in doing so they are making an enormous contribution to the economy and to society as a whole with living into our 90s and 100th set to become the norm we will have to radically and urgently rethink the way we live our typical sort of model of work is
• 34:00 - 34:30 that you get sort of promoted and promotion promoted you require more and more responsibility and then in a sense you go out at the top it's unusual enough for people to step down but a lot of the research in the area would say that that's exactly what people want to do and I think it's an opportunity to rethink working life we don't want necessarily to hurtle through life in a very intensive 40 year working period we could redesign it so that people have time out at a time when they're having children and then at the same time to be able to work much much
• 34:30 - 35:00 later into later years but at a different pace the next few decades will see radical change in the areas of retirement and Pensions but they will pale in comparison to the changes we will see in what is one of the most complex and expensive sectors in society healthcare [Music]
• 35:00 - 35:30 with over 60 s set to account for a third of the population by 2050 the provision of medical care is going to require a major overhaul a senior gerontologist in st. James's Hospital in Dublin professor Davis Coakley understands the problem well one of the biggest challenges is health in
• 35:30 - 36:00 old age there are several significant problems so people can develop such as respiratory problems cardiac problems strokes osteo arthritis neurological problems such as Parkinson's endocrine problems which can often be missed chronic disease will produce more and more disability as people get older and state would have to spend far more than in spending its moment on long term care either in institutions or in the community this is likely to go up significantly if we don't take a more
• 36:00 - 36:30 sensible attitude to Aging in the world as a whole about 80% of healthcare costs are in chronic disease management and currently most of that care for people suffering chronic disease are managed in acute setting such a hospitals and there simply isn't gonna be enough hospitals or doctors or nurses to take care of them in the current model the United States is actually a very interesting example in this area they don't have a particularly old population but they do
• 36:30 - 37:00 spend a massive proportion of the gross national product on health and really what that points to is that health spend and very very often is much more related to the nature of the system that you organize and you know inflation of the healthcare system can be much more to do with how you organize insurance and the general organization of the system we're not necessarily in deep trouble and again I think with a degree of creativity we can probably avoid some of the the more extreme scenarios that are sometimes presented on the health side
• 37:00 - 37:30 [Music] at 114 years old and new Jeni blonde char is currently the oldest living person on earth for the past 30 years more than a quarter of her life I knew Jeannie has been living in a nursing home I'm sure she's comfortable but is probably not what she had in mind few of us would choose to spend our last few years in a nursing home nor would we
• 37:30 - 38:00 choose to die in hospital if we could avoid it or spend hours in an emergency department when we're sick by using the advances in science and technology there is a solution we can provide a healthcare service that works for all [Music] the key to the new approach is to keep
• 38:00 - 38:30 people out of the hospital system for as long as possible instead focusing on prevention and early detection it's cheaper and makes people more comfortable in Ireland the medical scientific and technology sectors are working to turn the country into a global innovation hub of excellence in health technologies and aging Brendan I'm just going to take a picture of your eye there grace by conducting in-depth tests on thousands of people we're
• 38:30 - 39:00 building up a clear picture of how people aged and also learning how we can spot the onset of chronic disease long before it becomes a problem the current paradigm is reactive that the new paradigm is moving to prevention and in some countries where they have put in preventative models it actually shown if they decrease the cost of health care systems significantly sweetens one of those and they can compare a county to county where they're still a reactive model versus preventative model and show
• 39:00 - 39:30 the benefits both in reduce costs as well as people being better you know just healthier this state-of-the-art housing complex in Dundalk is a first tentative move towards a preventative approach in Ireland as well as being fitted out with useful gadgets and equipment the house
• 39:30 - 40:00 has been embedded with sensor technology the tracks sean's movements throughout the day should he change from his normal behavior the central monitoring system will alert the medical professionals that Sean may require attention [Music] Shawn is also testing out a personal health monitoring system technology of this kind offers a glimpse of the future of health care the intel health guide
• 40:00 - 40:30 here like there's two parts to us there is a device that is placed in the old person's home but that then is connected to what we call the healthcare management suite that essentially allows the care teams manage the specific care that that person needs especially around
• 40:30 - 41:00 the ankle area yeah wouldn't mind that a lot of what will be possible is going to be dependent on their being within the community these integrated primary care practices which involves a range of expertise across the different disciplines of the the doctor the nurse the occupational therapists the physiotherapist but it's also a range of support facilities like basic Diagnostics hello Shawn its Leona the
• 41:00 - 41:30 Papa cat nurse I'm just can't see how you are as technologies advance and we come to understand aging better the aim is to provide a more tailor-made medical service that has tuned to the actual needs of each individual person and focused on the community and on the home occasion electical now in one of the most in-depth joint ventures between academia and technology companies in the world groundbreaking clinical studies in
• 41:30 - 42:00 Ireland are informing the development of new technologies which aim to dramatically change the way health care is provided one exciting experiment is the shimmer sensor it monitors how people walk and scientists hope it will act as an early detection system in the future devices which are the size of this would be this size will be able to implant them in the body and as we go about our daily lives they will constantly gather information and transmit that information to healthcare
• 42:00 - 42:30 professionals this will completely revolutionize the way we deliver healthcare with a tiny chip implanted in his body Shawn can get on with his life if a problem arises the chip will trigger an immediate response from the emergency response units sophisticated monitoring and diagnosis done by things that are for example implanted in the body or else are in the home then it will
• 42:30 - 43:00 certainly be possible to identify when someone is at risk of some real medical emergency and before it happens and thereby come and effectively take you off to get preventative treatment before you even know consciously the girl whether you need a hip hop-eration or a triple bypass or some groundbreaking genetic treatment you could be sped off to the local clinic to be operated on by
• 43:00 - 43:30 a robot this technology which is already available at the galway clinic allows surgeons to operate on the patient remotely from a connected center of excellence anywhere in the world robotic theaters like this will become more prevalent allowing for a far more effective and efficient delivery of primary health care I think today's tele care and tele health systems we are just the beginning they're kind of like the first foray into this new space we think it'll be a
• 43:30 - 44:00 lot more sophisticated I think we will have health care on whatever kind of portable devices that we carry whether it's PDA or a cell phone I think we will be wearing some kind of sensors whether it's just on the body or in the body I think we'll just get so used to an information flow going over and back between offs and wherever our healthcare team is there's endless possibilities in terms of not just health knowledge but also wellness and staying well so to prevent
• 44:00 - 44:30 disease when we consider the state of the Irish Health Service many might think that radical changes like these are way beyond the scope of its capacity and yet as increasing numbers of people achieve longer and longer lifespans there will be no alternative but to provide the new technologies and genetic therapies that are being developed the economic arithmetic is totally uncontroversial today we have a situation where the amount of money that's spent on the average person's medical care in the last year of their life is actually more
• 44:30 - 45:00 than what's spent on their medical care throughout the whole of the rest of their life added together and that's irrespective of how old they are when they die now all that money is gonna be saved because people aren't going to get into the state of having Alzheimer's disease or cardiovascular disease or cancer and so on and yes these therapies are going to eat up some of that money but only a small proportion so from the point of view of any developed nation it's going to be economically suicidal not to give your populace the therapies free at the point of delivery
• 45:00 - 45:30 in modern society we tend to see older people as being frail and needy in fact the opposite is the case only 15% require regular medical attention the remaining 85% are perfectly healthy and living life to the full of course things like pensions and healthcare will be difficult to deal with but let's think differently about
• 45:30 - 46:00 let's convert what is perceived to be today's burden into tomorrow's bounty what is most interesting is that the majority of older people are economically independent essentially as we move into the future we're going to have a very large new player on the field and to be the player which is the people of age and all of the things they bring with them we've become accustomed so providing for the needs of youth and if they move out in the future we're going to have the needs of youth the needs of people who are in their
• 46:00 - 46:30 child-rearing years and in the future a very articulate wealthy and probably demanding people of age group who are going to be very interesting other part of the mix one of the under-recognized features of an older population is the purchasing power of the older consumer they account for 75% of of wealth at Liew 80 percent in the UK of the u.s. what's really interesting about what we call the silver economy is going to be the demand for new products essentially
• 46:30 - 47:00 if you do nothing that means huge costs and healthcare and huge pension costs and younger people are going to be taxed out of existence but you can turn that around and say that that's an opportunity most people now innovate products and services for the 30 and under you know if they turn to the 50 plus market that could innovate all kinds of products and services for those people older people want a whole different set of products they want to hold different session of services they
• 47:00 - 47:30 want to hold different kinds of leisure and travel etc there is a huge opportunity here in Ireland to make this as it were our niche capability increasing lifespans have become a feature of nearly every country around the world and the market for goods and services targeted at the elderly will become a really important feature of the global economy in the next few decades Ireland is already at the forefront and
• 47:30 - 48:00 with more impetus could be well placed to benefit economically if we focus on developing medical expertise gene therapies and new technologies Ireland can become a leading player in what is set to become the great gold rush of the 21st century so there are many pharmaceutical companies who are very interested in this kind of of approach if you're the person who discovers the these biochemical pathways and you find the drug that blocks them then it might
• 48:00 - 48:30 be the the elixir of youth and clearly there's a lot of money to be made the end of Aging is possibly the most radical change that human civilization has undergone from millennia dealing with it won't be easy but it will be worth it of course there are great challenges ahead but we can overcome them in many ways we have no choice to because the generation who are
• 48:30 - 49:00 growing old today are like nothing that has come before them [Music] try to put it down [Music] the people who are now entering their 70s are the very same people who signed by heart the lyrics of my generation [Music] fifty years ago Townsend asked his
• 49:00 - 49:30 elders and we all know what he really meant well Pete is now in his sixties and like the rest of us I doubt he has any intention of vanishing far from it 50 years on older people are coming into their own Nelson Mandela said the problem in life is not lack of power the problem in life is now using the power we have and older people simply don't realize the power that they have
• 49:30 - 50:00 collectively to to make things happen to make this the kind of society that they want to make it when thousands of older people came together outside the oléron in October 2008 to protest against the withdrawal of the medical card we saw a glimpse of that power the image of older people as kindly grannies and tawdry granddad's misses the truth completely the generation who created youth culture forked the cultural and the women's
• 50:00 - 50:30 revolution will fight the battle against ageism and being no doubt they will succeed at present society may see aging in a negative way this is a total misapprehension because aging is a wonderful achievement for mankind most people now are able to live their full lifespan and they're being encouraged to do it in a fulfilled and enriching way whether it's seen as a positive or negative for society as a whole
• 50:30 - 51:00 depends on our attitude there's a huge potential for all the people to contribute to society but it requires the imagination to grasp that fact and to encourage [Music] everything as we know it is changing the human race will never be the same again it is time for us to welcome and to enjoy the potential for living longer
• 51:00 - 51:30 [Music] [Applause] [Music] you