The economy’s not doing well; every American is worried about his or her financial well-being.

Helping people get jobs will help our nation’s GDP, and that’s one of the new administration’s primary concerns.

There are still other demographics to consider, however. People already have a hard time taking care of their families, let alone their aging parents. Social Security should ease financial costs for retirees, but there is understandable skepticism about whether it’s working, and care of aging Americans could become a growing issue.

The Federal Interagency Forum on Aging-Related Statistic’s Web site, www.agingstats.gov, indicates Americans are living longer than before. On average, people who manage to live to age 65 can expect to live 18.7 more years; that is about seven years longer than 65 year olds from 1900 could anticipate.

Since 1900, there have been numerous medical advances contributing to the longevity of an American’s life. A February 2005 article on www.medicinenet.com acknowledges vaccination, control of infectious diseases, safer and healthier foods and family planning as some of the top 10 public health achievements of the century. While all of these improvements are significantly beneficial, perhaps we have begun to value quantity over quality.

The baby boomer generation is aging and requiring more care. They are still not really old enough to consider nursing homes. But because they are such a large population, when they do reach that age, geriatrics may have their work cut out for them. Nursing homes could become overcrowded or require more staff.

“Overcrowding will not be a problem, quality care will be,” said Christine Hacker, the director of education for the DeKalb County Rehab and Nursing Center. “[Nursing home employees] do not get good reimbursements from the state, especially Illinois. Long-term care can’t match the salaries in hospitals. Long-term care is far more physically demanding than hospital work and emotionally exhausting.”

For this reason, less people actually want to work with the elderly, and the best-trained nurses end up working at hospitals. More attention needs to be paid to senior healthcare to ensure they live out their remaining years comfortably. Or, maybe we try too hard to prolong the inevitable.

“Life expectancy is going up, and we’re able to battle old illnesses. But with all good things come challenges,” Hacker said.

The former RN went on to discuss how this is the ethical challenge. Do we keep trying to hold onto the ones we love or accept death? The longer you keep a person alive in a critical condition at such an age, the more problems they are most likely to experience. Because we now have the option to prevent an illness, it is hard for us to find it moral to do anything but cure it.

Hacker said it also depends on the case. She gave the example of a DeKalb County resident in his 90s who received a knee replacement. She asked him why he insisted on getting it. He told her he needed to be able to be on the golf course by May, and he was. It’s not easy to determine when our advances in medicine can be found truly beneficial or when they are just a temporary solution until the next problem arises.

I once heard life referred to as an “eternal illness.” Some may consider it a morbid perspective but a realistic one seems more appropriate. When old age starts to take its toll, death sounds appealing compared to 10 years of several pills a day, an oxygen tank, wheel chair and the inability to comprehend anything for oneself for the sake of being alive, which seems hardly to be life at all.