‘Health services must do more to meet needs of older people’
One of those commenting on The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing report — HSE national clinical lead on stroke Ronan Collins — said healthcare in Ireland must catch up with our ageing population. Stock picture
Health services are facing challenges in meeting the needs of older people, but can no longer delay finding solutions, doctors and advocates have said.
The call for action follows a stark warning in the latest report from The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (Tilda), published on Tuesday, which showed that significant numbers of older people are living with certain diseases either without treatment or without the right treatment. These include hypertension and high cholesterol which can lead to stroke or heart disease as well as an increase in falls.
Age Action head of advocacy and public affairs Camile Loftus warned: “The fact these conditions are under-diagnosed is a little red flag for us.”
The data shows one in 20 people aged over 50 needed a hospital emergency department visit after falling in the last year. Gaps were identified in access to physiotherapy for them.
“It would be better if we were in a situation where we age-proof people’s homes to make a fall less likely,” she said. “That’s a good investment, that’s a sensible thing to do — to ensure the places people live in create a lesser risk of these kinds of accidents.”
She supported a call by Tilda principal investigator Rose-Anne Kenny for greater screening of health conditions in pharmacies.
“We can address these gaps by driving more of our healthcare provision out to community level, to primary care level,” she said. “These are things we really need to get a handle on now.”
HSE national clinical lead on stroke, Ronan Collins, described findings around gaps in care as “not surprising in one sense” while he also pointed out improvements. He said:
Some older people will face new health issues such as heart disease or osteoporosis.
Referring to this, he said: “I think we have a challenge, and I don’t think we have the resources to meet those.”
However, speaking during the launch of a HSE stroke awareness campaign, he also pointed to progress in stroke care and dementia.
Dr Collins said: “Hopefully the new disease-modifying drugs for dementia will be licensed and coming online in Ireland soon, they have been approved in Europe.
“So we are making progress but the challenge is substantial there’s no doubt about that.”
Alone CEO Sean Moynihan focused on other gaps, saying: “Loneliness cuts across all the reasons people come to us, it’s the highest thing people come to us for [help with].”
Many of their service users have lower income levels,
He said: “We have probably the more marginalised older people who are on their own, who have lower house ownership and basically depend on the pension and have less support structures.”
He called for an awareness campaign, saying “there is help, there is support out there”, warning that loneliness is also shown to lead to worsening physical health.
Writing in the Tilda report Alone head of research, evaluation and policy Aileen O’Reilly called for recognition that older people are not all the same.
The data showed loneliness is “persistently higher among older adults who are not married, are widowed, or live alone,” she said.
