Title:
Disabilities in Old, Young Studied in Developing
Nations
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Technology Report.
See text below
Text:
A new study says the leading cause of disability in
older people in low and middle income countries is
dementia. The researchers disagree with the World
Health Organization which says blindness and other
vision problems are the leading cause.
Dementia is a loss of intellectual ability that
affects memory, learning, attention, thinking and
language skills. People with dementia may forget
family members or not know what day it is. Sometimes
they become angry or sad, hear voices, or see things
that are not there.
Renata Sousa from the Institute of Psychiatry at
King's College London and other researchers wrote
the new report. Their study looked at the causes of
disability among fifteen thousand people age
sixty-five or older in seven countries. The
countries were China, India, Cuba, the Dominican
Republic, Venezuela, Mexico and Peru.
The team found that dementia was the largest cause
of disability in the elderly in areas other than
rural India and Venezuela.
Other major causes were stroke, loss of use of arms
or legs, arthritis, depression, eyesight problems
and gastrointestinal problems.
In low and middle income countries, heart disease
and cancer get much of the attention given to
chronic diseases. The researchers say increased
importance should be given to chronic diseases of
the brain and mind. As populations age, societies
will have to deal with more and more cases of
dementia.
The study says the elderly are nine percent of the
total population of low and middle income countries
today. But their numbers are growing quickly. They
are expected to reach twenty percent of the total
population by the middle of the century.
The study appeared in the Lancet medical journal
which published a special issue on disability.
A separate study of eighteen low and middle income
countries dealt with children.
It found that in almost half the countries, children
who were not breastfed were much more likely to have
a disability than those who were. The same was true
of those who did not receive vitamin A supplements
and those who were underweight.
Children who did not take part in early learning
activities or attend school were also more likely to
be disabled than those who did.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
in the United States and UNICEF did the study.
And that's the VOA Special English Development
Report.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
