Every culture has tales of Vampires and the undead. There is a part of all of us that wants to live forever. We can’t imagine a world without us. Health nuts constantly hear a loud voice saying, “Just one more lap, one more mouthful of Kale, and you’ll never die!” Silly, right? But science is getting pretty close to allowing everyone living to be 100, and maybe a lot more. If you could live forever, would you want to?
Over the last century life expectancy has risen by 20 years, which is nothing short of AMAZING! When our life expectancy was closer to 50, we also engaged in a lot more manual labor. By the end of our short lives, our bodies were pretty much used up.
It wasn’t just all that hard work! Without vaccines and modern medicine, a touch of scarlet fever could damage your heart and lead to a lifetime of sickness. Occasional bouts of pneumonia or a bit of contaminated water would take a huge toll on your wellbeing. Women were exhausted after having 5 to 10 children, and easy targets for common diseases.
A 70-year-old today is often as physically fit as a 50-year-old in the last century. Better health means longer life. Hey, why not eternal life?
For one thing, immortality will be costly. Not, “You must sell me your soul, bwah, ha ha ha”, costly. I mean paying for more options on your health care policy. “Sure, the ‘life extension’ option is a bit pricy, but, if you should die at a covered health care establishment we offer unlimited resuscitation!” A deal with the devil is a LOT less frightening for retirees than negotiating a new health care policy!
Without full insurance coverage, immortality will be a drag! Medical services routinely pull us back from the brink of death… heart replacement, brain survey, cancer treatments, etc. Every year 10,000 American’s have heart replacements. 30,000 hearts are restarted with defibrillators, and another 400,000 could have been saved.
The longer you live, the more likely that you will die, more than once! Think about paramedics using electric paddles to bring someone back to life. Schools, hotels and public places now that have fire extinguishers often also have defibrillators. Just break the glass and follow the instructions! As we live longer lives, we are more likely to be in situations where advanced medical technology can bring us back from the dead or offset our declining senses and weakening limbs.
An aging body is a disabled body. Eyeglasses or Lasik surgery can fix minor sight issues. Fading hearing can be assisted by hearing aids. But high-end hearing aids are rarely covered by insurance. Need a walker or a wheelchair? An advanced model that isn’t covered by insurance may give you back more mobility.
Even if you are not wheelchair bound for life, knee surgery, a hip replacement, or any of a number of surgeries for a non-life threatening condition could land you in a wheelchair for months or longer. The specific assistive technologies you choose (or can afford) could make a big difference in your quality of life.
Have you spoken to your insurance provider about what your policy provides? You still have time, but by your one-hundredth birthday, you may need daily medical intervention. The quality of that intervention will determine what kind of life you can expect.
Luckily, new assistive technology is just around the corner. Old medical technology came from medical firms. That means spending tens of millions of dollars and years, if not decades, of testing before a product could be sold to the public. Take the simple example of hearing aids. Today’s technology can dramatically improve hearing for individuals with moderate hearing loss, amplifying sounds and eliminating background noise. However, top of the line hearing aids will set you back by more than $6,000. And don’t expect it to be covered by your insurance.
Starting in 2020, the game changes! New legislation will allow consumer companies to sell “hearing assistance” devices. Basically, similar features at a much lower price. The main difference is that medical devices include the cost for doctors and technicians to test your hearing and then customize the settings on your hearing aids. Hearing assistance devices, some of which will be virtually identical to their medical counterparts will either have much simpler customization that you can perform yourself or will have software that tests your hearing and then customizes the devices.
What will this mean to you? Well, when you need hearing aids… and you WILL need hearing aids… more manufacturers will enter the closed world of medical devices. They will create more features and update products more frequently. Take Bose, the headphones and sounds equipment guys. They already have headphones that make your music sound better while allowing you to hear the conversations around you more clearly.
Their headphones have software built-in that is very similar to the audio test you get at your doctor. It plays various tones and you indicate what you can and cannot hear. The software then analyzes the results and amplifies the areas of your hearing that have deteriorated. A consumer level replacement for a hearing aid will cost $500 to $1,000. And some will cost less.
Hearing aid manufacturers will not welcome competition. They are already emphasizing the benefits of a doctor testing your hearing and customizing your hearing aid, compared to software performing the same tasks. That argument may be right or it may be wrong. Still, let’s assume that when we compare a medical and consumer hearing device that the medical device provides superior hearing.
At a time when Alexa can understand your speech and cars are becoming smart enough to drive themselves, testing your hearing and then adjusting the settings on a hearing aid doesn’t seem that hard. In fact, some high-end medical hearing aids that are sold through “discount” channels, are not customized by doctors. Instead, “technicians” do this work, and so the total cost is lower.
Also, a given hearing aid company will sell a number of hearing aids with different capabilities. The economy model cost less but has fewer features and fewer options to customize your device. The “premium” model may cost two or three times more, but will probably provide you with better hearing.
The average American that will pay some or all of the cost of a hearing aid. A better comparison might be, do you want to pay $2,000 to $3,000 for a low-end (but custom tested and fitted) medical device that will restore less hearing than the top of the line device, but that you can afford? Or, would you pay $300 to $1,000 for a high-end feature-rich consumer device (customized through software) that might be similar to the high-end medical device, but which will be less customized to your needs? Unfortunately, the real comparison for all too many Americans will be, do you want a consumer device that you can afford, or… nothing at all?
Assistive technologies, like hearing aids, differ from other medical devices because they generally make your life better. If you select a less than the perfect option… due to cost, appearance, or some other choice… you won’t die. Consider other common devices. Like eyeglasses.
The average pair of glasses cost $200, with many costing far more. If you get your glasses from a doctors office, it may cost several times more. You can buy very similar glasses on the Internet for as little as $10. How much is that custom fitting worth to you? Eyeglasses can be customized by consumers, as is shown in many DIY videos.
Then there are drugs like Adderall and Provigil (also known as Modafinil). High school and college students use these drugs (with and without prescriptions) to improve test scores. When graduates enter the workforce, they continue to use these drugs. Like it or not, the questionable use of drugs to improve mental performance is deeply embedded in America’s healthcare culture.
CBD oil (derived from marijuana) is becoming legalized and has exploded in use. Ironically, CBD… long illegal because of its association with marijuana… has long been illegal, yet is now used to cure individuals from addiction to pharmaceutically produced opiates. Opiate addiction, created due to an earlier generation of disabilities, has disabled millions of Americans.
Many other “natural” drugs might aid Americans, disabled by any number of disorders. If the cure is essentially harmless, does it need to go through decades of testing? If so, we can expect far fewer of these cures for disability to ever become available.
Chemicals that can give you a boost for a difficult project, may also turn back the clock for your brain. Even newer technologies improve mental acuity through direct electrical stimulation of your brain. A small device added to your headphones could keep you mentally alert into your 90’s and beyond.
How quickly will these new technologies be developed and released? Who will pay for these innovations? Will new technology arrive soon enough to save you from decades of mental decline and eventual senility?
Get ready for it dear readers! We will all enjoy extraordinarily long lives. But will we really enjoy all of those extra years? Will we be capable and independent, or will we be trapped in failing bodies with defective minds? The answer to these questions rests in our hands. We need to make our voices heard if we want assistive technologies to be quickly developed and widely accepted. What do you think? Tell us if you think disability is an important issue for healthcare. Or, do you see a different future as we age?