Aging in America by Deborah Carr

Author:Deborah Carr
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780520972162
Publisher: University of California Press

Figure 24. Death rates among adults ages sixty-five and over by leading causes of death, 1981–2018. NOTE: Rates are deaths per 100,000 population. ICD-9 codes used prior to 1999, ICD-10 classifications used thereafter. SOURCE: Arias et al. (2021); Federal Interagency Forum on Aging-Related Statistics (2020).

Cancer has consistently ranked as the second most common cause of death for older adults since the mid-twentieth century. The risk of cancer increases with age; the median age of any cancer diagnosis is sixty-six years, with a range of sixty-two for breast cancer to seventy-one for lung cancer (National Cancer Institute 2021).7 Cancer can undermine older adults’ quality of life; treatments like radiation or chemotherapy (and its side effects, like nausea) cause physical and emotional distress. The word cancer often is viewed as a death sentence, so older patients may become depressed and anxious (Blank and Bellizzi 2008). Most older adults with cancer also have at least one other health condition that requires care; for instance, many lung cancer patients also have COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder), while age-related conditions like high blood pressure and arthritis are common among cancer patients regardless of the tumor site (Williams et al. 2016). Researchers have documented race and socioeconomic disparities in cancer mortality, although these gaps vary based on the site of cancer and how amenable the cancer is to treatment. The main explanations for these mortality differentials are access to early screening, detection, and treatment for cancers like breast and colorectal. We revisit these themes later in the chapter.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.