The dilemma of old age becomes more prevalent than ever

Natalija Webb, who works as a Development and Later Life intern at the Mental Health Foundation explains how the public can help in giving older people a better quality of life.

Doctors, pharmaceutical companies and research institutions are working tirelessly to prolong the life of a person, to spot the early signs of cancer and dementia and to find cures for HIV and AIDs.  Indeed, in the last three years after peaking to their highest 20-30 years ago.

At the same time, the job of prolonging someone’s life puts an additional strain on the government finances.  Such terms as ‘ageing population’ and ‘demographic time bomb’ are no longer new to us.  Life expectancy in the UK increases, whilst healthy life expectancy remains the same. Furthermore, with an introduction of single-tier state pension reform and current cuts in social care sector, ageing becomes scarier and financially more challenging.

That’s why we are setting up an online panel of people passionate about mental health and later life to help steer our work.

The panel called Views on Growing Older (VOGO) would be invited to:

• Share their views about issues relating to mental health and later life

• Have a say about the type of work and projects we could be doing on mental health and later life

• Participate in social research projects and other work on mental health and later life

Passionate about mental health and later life?  Got something to say about dementia or growing older? Join our panel! For more information please visit our page.

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