Over the next 20 years, the number of older adults in England diagnosed with four or more diseases will nearly double, according to a study published in Age and Ageing, the journal of the British Geriatrics Society.
Researchers created the Population Ageing and Care Simulation model, a dynamic microsimulation model, and investigated 303,589 individuals, aged 35 years and older —a random sample of the 2014 population in England.
Researchers found between 2015 and 2035, the proportion of the population with more than four diseases will nearly double from 9.8 percent to 17 percent. Thus the life expectancy gains, expected to be 3.6 years for men and 2.9 years for women, will be spent with four-plus diseases.
Researchers also found the largest increases in disease diagnoses will be for cancer, which will increase by 179.4 percent, and diabetes, which will rise by 118.1 percent, in the older population,
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