How many times have you heard someone say that they’d prefer to simply die of old age?
Of all the ways to die, “old age” sounds the most peaceful, and there is a quiet kind of dignity about it. But medically, that diagnosis doesn’t have any real meaning. In a new Business Insider report, doctors say that there is no such thing as dying of old age.
Instead, what people really mean is that the elderly sometimes die of things that younger, healthier people could have more easily withstood. Pneumonia is a good example — a seemingly non-urgent condition that can simply overwhelm an elderly body.
What about people who “die in their sleep?” Old age isn’t claiming them, either. Usually, a heart attack, stroke, or some other critical event is responsible. For some reason, we accept that as nothing more than old age if the person happens to be old, whereas we’d call the same death by its proper name in a younger person.
If a 50-year-old heart stops, it’s a heart attack. If a 90-year-old heart stops, it’s old age. But doctors say that it’s a “myocardial infarction” (the technical term for a heart attack) either way.
Why sweat the difference? Well, if old age can’t kill us, maybe it doesn’t have to mean the end of anything!
The narrative of human existence has always gone something like this: born, grows up, gets old, dies. But as Business Insider explains, many other species are no more likely to die when they’re old than they are when they’re young.
Could it be like that for humans someday too? Believe it or not, the answer is (maybe) yes. In fact, we’re already seeing that unfold.
Heart disease, cancer, and stroke are already declining in seniors over the age of 60. Seniors are living to be healthy for much longer, and the average lifespan continues to grow. With numerous, nearly miraculous advances in senior care on the horizon, we may very well see the eradication of “aging,” at least in the sense of “growing feeble.”
Should medical science continue this trend, we could find ourselves in a world where humans are no more susceptible to heart attack, pneumonia, or other pathologies at age 100 than they are at age 30.
So get ready, world! You might have a lot of life ahead of you, and that means long-term care planning matters more than ever. A longer life demands a bigger budget, and even with a decreased likelihood of disease, you can ensure that age-staving treatments will increase long-term care costs in Massachusetts. The sooner you start planning, the better. We can help, so give us a call!
