Yogyakarta Declaration -OLD AGE PROBLEMS (TOI)

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NEW DELHI: The country's elderly, who have long been neglected, finally have a reason to smile with India on Wednesday joining 10 South-East Asian countries to adopt the Yogyakarta Declaration on 'Ageing and Health', committing to improving national response to the health of ageing populations.

The declaration comes at an important juncture with India's health ministry expecting 51% of the elderly population in India to be women by 2016. Overall, nearly 7.5% of India's population is presently aged 60 years and above.

According to the ministry, India will soon become home to the second largest number of older people in the world. The challenges are unique with this population. A majority (80%) of them are in the rural areas thus making service delivery a challenge, and 30% of the elderly being below poverty line.


What's worse, at present 1 in every 4 among India's elderly population are depressed, 1 in 3 suffer from arthritis while 1 in 5 can't hear. While 1 in 3 suffer from hypertension in India, almost half have poor vision. Around 1 in 10 experience a fall that results in fracture while 2 in 5 are anemic. One in 10 in rural India and 2 in 5 in urban suffer from diabetes with nearly 31% suffering from bowel disorders.

By adopting the Yogyakarta Declaration, the health ministry acknowledges that healthy ageing is a major public health challenge.

"WHO follows a life-course approach to promoting healthy, active ageing. People who get the right start in life, follow healthy lifestyles and take good care of their health can expect to remain active during their eighth, ninth and even tenth decade of life," said Dr Margaret Chan, WHO director general.

The ministers recognized that healthy ageing should optimize opportunities for the physical, social and mental health of older persons to enable them to take an active part in society and to enjoy an independent life without discrimination.

However, while it would need national programmes to promote these issues, at present, the concept of healthy ageing is yet to be adequately recognized in many member countries.

The ministers committed to a coherent, comprehensive and integrated approach to promote healthy ageing and to "develop and strengthen national policy for healthy ageing and to formulate multi-sectoral national alliances for promoting healthy ageing, ensure provision of sufficient resources for programmes dealing with ageing and health taking into consideration the economic aspects of long-term care of the very old, both at the facility and household levels, strengthen the primary health care system to address the health needs of the elderly population including the in-service training of health professionals for the care of elderly persons and support the creation of dedicated cadres of health and social support caregivers within the existing health and social support systems."

According to the report of the Union health ministry's working group on non communicable disease burden for the 12th five year plan, while in the 11th plan, Rs 1000 crores was allocated to take care of the elderly, Rs 3147 crore will be required to upscale the programme over the next five years.

Ministry estimates say the number of people in the 60-plus age group in India will increase to 100 million in 2013 and to 198 million in 2030.

The elderly population will increase to 12% of the total population by 2025, 10% of which would be bedridden, requiring utmost care.

The ministry's revised National Programme for the Health Care of the Elderly (NPHCE) expects to have 20 institutions with capacity to produce 40 postgraduates in MD in geriatric medicine per year, additional 6400 beds in district hospitals and 1000 beds in medical colleges for the elderly by 2017.

According to the 2006 World Population Prospects, by 2050, the number of Indians aged above 80 will increase more than six times from the current number of 78 lakh to nearly 5.14 crore. At present, 20% of this category in India suffer from Alzheimer's.

The number of people over 65 years of age in the country is expected to quadruple from 6.4 crore in 2005 to 23.9 crore, while those aged 60 and above will increase from 8.4 crore to 33.5 crore in the next 43 years.