Image source: Visual China
Oriental Network reporter Xue Ningwei reported on March 9: The seventh national census shows that the mainland has more than 260 million people aged 60 and above. The acceleration of the aging process of society has made improving the quality of health and extending healthy life expectancy a challenge, and the concept of elderly health management has emerged.
"In addition to the serious diseases represented by malignant tumors and stroke that require hospitalization, the negative impact of hearing vision, pain, psychology, sleep and other problems on the quality of life of the elderly cannot be ignored." During the two sessions, Ma Lan, a deputy to the National People's Congress and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, focused on the topic of elderly health management.
National People's Congress Deputy Ma Lan Photo: Zhang Chi
Ma Lan believes that with the transformation of modern medical model from simple clinical treatment medicine to preventive medicine, geriatric medicine should also change from "old medicine" to "old age health", with more emphasis on disease prevention and self-care, and put geriatric disease preventive medicine in an important position.
For the case of chronic diseases in the elderly, Ma Lan listed a set of figures in the proposal: the proportion of elderly people suffering from chronic diseases is nearly 90%, more than 60% of the elderly population has problems with visual condition, more than 30% of the elderly population has problems with hearing conditions, about 50% of the elderly population has problems with dental conditions, and nearly 60% of the elderly population often has pain, of which about 30% are more serious.
In addition, there are data showing that about 20% of the elderly smoke and drink, about 50% of the elderly never exercise, about 70% of the elderly are dissatisfied with their health, and the elderly who do not live alone are relatively better in self-assessment.
Ma Lan suggested that health literacy education be carried out for the elderly, including strengthening publicity in medical institutions focusing on secondary prevention, and establishing and improving the monitoring system for diseases and health risk factors with health stations as the main carrier.
At the same time, it is also possible to implement archival health management for the elderly, establish health files for each elderly person, and file a record for the problems of vision, hearing, oral cavity, sleep, spirit, pain and other aspects that are prone to occur in the elderly, and provide them with targeted intervention suggestions in a timely manner.
In addition, Ma Lan also suggested that hospitals at all levels open special service areas or departments for elderly patients, establish green channels, provide priority permissions, and improve hardware support. For grass-roots medical institutions in rural areas, Ma Lan suggested that while promoting the construction of informatization, it is necessary to retain a convenient channel for the elderly with low modern knowledge levels to seek medical treatment.