In the year 1900, children at the age of 5 and under outnumbered all other age groups, but that is no longer true today. In the year 2017, the number of people aged 60 to 64 is practically equivalent to the number of five-year-old children. This closing of an age gap demonstrates that the U.S. has an aging population. People are living longer, and one certainly hopes to continue raising that bar! The increase in lifespan is due to multiple factors such as advances in medicine, improvement of lifestyle, and a plethora of other benefits offered throughout modern society. However, as people live longer, it becomes more important to ensure that quality of life does not drop in tandem with rising age.

The issue is that, as people grow older, their bodies deteriorate at a constant rate. A once athletic man or woman will someday no longer be able to run, jump, see, or think like he or she used to. Imagine being able to drive to the supermarket one day and then the next your car is taken away from you because your family deems you unfit to operate a vehicle. This is a reality for many elderly folks in the U.S. Unfortunately, such a drastic measure can have a massive psychological toll on an elderly person.

The problem with deterioration in health is that older people tend to lose their ability to care for themselves. They require individual care that only family members or specialized doctors and nurses can handle. They surely recognize this inability to properly tend to their own needs and experience a loss of autonomy in the process. Research shows that, when the elderly has their ability to drive taken away from them, they can experience a sharp decline in mental and physical health. However, this does not mean that if someone is unsafe to drive we should let them roam the roads. Instead, this highlights why it is important to help people in their old age still feel capable and useful.

Although a lack of focus on eldercare may not be considered a spotlight issue in the U.S., it is still being discussed and dissected by professionals. To become more familiar with the issues of eldercare as well as general end of life care, I recommend Dr. Atul Gawande's enlightening book Being Mortal. Dr. Gawande is keen to share personal stories as well as shifting medical trends regarding the topic of eldercare. However, this is only one person among many who is fighting to bring this to light, and we still need more people to investigate and discuss it.

It is imperative that we do not leave behind our fathers, mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers after all they have given to us in our lives. As U.S. citizens, we believe in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness at any age. It is time we change the culture currently surrounding eldercare for the better to improve quality of life for all.