Caring for Aging Population 1. Countries have the oldest populations in 20

Caring for Aging Population
   Hello, everyone. Today we are going to talk about aging population and the caring work for them. We know that people are living longer everywhere in the world. Studies show the average age of the human population is rising. According to the latest number from World Health Organization, in 2050, China will be the country with the largest population aged 80 years or over with 90 million. India will come in second with 37 million. And the U.S. will be third with 32 million. Other countries with the largest populations of the 80 and older crowd will be Japan, Brazil, Germany, France, Italy, Britain and the Russian Federation.
   The WHO says governments must prepare now to deal with an increasingly aging world. As people age, they may develop long-term health problems. These disorders may affect their quality of life and create problems for society and health care systems.
   Caring for an aging population takes both time and money. The responsibility of caring for an older person often falls on family members. And this can create difficulties. Some families experience what we call "caregiver burnout" , which refers to a caregiver having been under such stress — perhaps financial, perhaps physical, certainly emotional stress — that he or she cannot continue doing the care-giving anymore. And the condition can affect a person in many ways. So people need several things to reduce the stress of caring for aging or disabled family members. These things include money, medical training and sometimes just giving the caregiver a break.
   Studies have found that Sweden and Finland lead the world in supporting caregivers, while the U.S. is far behind other English-speaking countries in giving families support for caring for sick and aging family members. Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland do a better job than the United States in terms of their support to caregivers, for all four countries have strong government-supported caregiver programs. Families can get financial help and resources to help them care for elderly family members as well as disabled children.
   However, in some cultures, it is the family’s responsibility to care for aging family members. So, even the word "caregiver" does not exist in many cultures. In India, there are so many middle-class Indian people especially young people who have moved to Australia or the U.K. or the U.S. and the parents are still living back in India. They just send money back. It is similar in China. Actually China passed a law saying that adult children must send money back to support the family. And they’ve started implementing this law now.
   However, the situation in Japan is far different. Japan offers long-term insurance for families and they also have a tradition of family care-giving. But they do not have a group of care-giving organizations that work together. Japan has a lack of young people to care for its aging population. To answer that problem, Japan has sometimes turned to other countries to train people to work in healthcare. For example, they train Vietnamese to work as healthcare workers for aging populations in Japan. Besides, scientists in Japan have also invented robot caregivers, which are designed, for instance, to move patients from a bed to a wheelchair.
   Ok, having talked about the aging population, caregiver burnout and cultural differences in care-giving, I hope that you have got a general understanding of this topic. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask me.