(Newswire.net — December 30, 2016) — By this point in time, no one is surprised to hear that Boomers are aging and in coming years there will be a real crisis in healthcare due to the advanced age of a large percentage of the population. Although Millennials have overtaken Boomers by tens of millions, the fact remains that a huge portion of Boomers are going to need the services of a geriatric doctor or a geriatric nurse practitioner within the next decade or two.
As people are living longer than ever before, it is expected that Boomers will live longer than the time needed for the United States to train up specialists in geriatrics. A simple fact, but a startling one as well. If you are a numbers cruncher, the following data released by the Department of Health & Human Services, Administration on Aging will tell all.
Future Growth of Elderly Projected
In January of 2011, the first wave of Baby Boomers hit 65 and it was around this time that it started becoming evident that healthcare just wouldn’t be able to keep up with the sheer number of geriatric patients in coming years. Just the year before, Health & Human Services projected that by the year 2050 there would be 88.5 million seniors aged 65 and older, which is more than double the number in 2010. At that point there were ‘only’ 40.2 million seniors and the healthcare crisis was already being evidenced.
Accelerated Need for Geriatric Nurse Practitioner Courses
However, those are just the beginning of statistics that go beyond startling. They are downright overwhelming. In 2009 it is estimated that approximately 2.6 million people turned the magic 65. Correspondingly, only 1.8 million people 65 or older died that same year, which means that the net growth of elderly for that year was just about 771,000.
As each year continues, that number will be increasing because people are living longer and although major universities are offering geriatric nurse practitioner programs, graduates with geriatric nurse practitioner degrees are outnumbering the need for those professionals.
An Overwhelming Number of Seniors Needing Care
According to the Family Caregiver Alliance – National Center on Caregiving, there were only 64,024 people in 2009 who were advanced beyond the centennial mark. That would mean that 0.2% of the senior population reached the age of 100. That may not seem significant, but if you look at the fact that it is a 72% increase over the total from 1990, which was only 37,306, you will see why there is concern for the coming decades. Remember that you are looking at a potential increase of at least 72% by 2029, which would calculate to over 110 thousand centennials by 2029, and by 2050 you would be looking at a total population over the age of 100 of almost 190,000 in the United States.
Looking at those figures you can see why statistics on aging are startling, to say the least. Within just about three decades the United States will potentially have a population over the age of 100 amounting to just about 200,000. The need for geriatric nurse practitioners is immense.