Turkish Journal of
GERIATRICS

Başkent Üniversitesi Tıp Fakültesi Halk Sağlığı Anabilim Dalı, ANKARA In 1950, the life expectancy at birth was found to be 48 years while this number increased to 65.4 years for the overall world population today. With this increasing trend, the life expectancy at birth is expected to reach 68.1 years in 2020 and the elder population will be approximately one billion that 700 million of them will live in developing countries.
In Turkey, the percentage of elder population was 4.2 in 1985 then it was increased to 5.6 in 2000 and it is expected to reach 7.7 in 2020. Similarly, the life expectancy at birth is 70 years for now while it is expected to reach 73.9 years in 2020.
Demographic trends and health transitions, along with changes in the distribution of risk factors, have accelerated the epidemic of non-communicable disease in the country. For instance cardiovascular diseases account for 19.8 % of the disease burden among all ages and ischaemic heart disease and cerebrovascular disease are the two leading causes of mortality among older people. Despite these facts, lack of specific health policy to prevent non-communicable disease as well as elderly care in the country is the main problem.
The main problem regarding eldery health is not taking consideration of this groups’ problem since today. In addition, lack of adequate services and professionals in the field, especially in primary health care services are the other problems. As we all know, primary, secondary and tertiary preventive implementations and also specialty in geriatrics are insufficient while there is not an effective coordination between different care providers such as social and health workers in the country. Besides all these facts, lack of knowledge environmental regulation for eldery in the community could be listed as the other main problems. Keywords : Elderly, Life Expectancy, Chronic Disease.