Growing older in better health is possible and Cuba is working on it

Havana, Feb 22 (ACN) The demographic dynamics, and as part of it the aging population, are issues of the present and the future, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez told health experts and scientists during a meeting to discuss actions and means in health institutions for the benefit of the elderly.

Díaz-Canel suggested steps to make the Cuban demographic dynamics program more systematic in order to cope with one of the country’s most challenging and important issues.

Engineer Arlem Lesmes Fernández Sigler, general manager of the enterprise Combiomed Tecnología Médica Digital, attached to Biocubafarma, presented the geriatrics and gerentology evaluation kit that the institution will make available to the national health system (SNS) to care for the elderly, a technology that will eventually be available at the level of primary care, namely polyclinics, family doctor’s offices, and senior citizen’s homes.

Dr. Mitchell Valdés-Sosa, general director of the Center for Neurosciences of Cuba (CNEURO), recalled that this innovation is the result of a meeting of the President with members of the Cuban Academy of Sciences of Cuba a year ago.

On her end, Dr. Liliam Rodríguez Rivera, director of the Center for Research on Longevity, Aging and Health (CITED), pointed out that while in 2021 the aging population was 21.6% percent, in 2022 it is already 21.9% and it is estimated that by 2050 this figure will rise to 33.2% of the total population.

She also stressed that, since the United Nations designated the period 2020-2030 as the Decade of Healthy Aging, Cuba designed four areas of action intended to change the way we think of, feel about and look at age and aging.