雅思课外读物--对待人口老龄化的态度

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在这里分享一篇关于人口老龄化的外刊文章，大家可以作为雅思阅读的拓展或者雅思写作的素材收集。

ON a stage decorated with tinsel(金箔) and fairy lights, Liu Changsheng is

singing “The East is Red” into a microphone, wearing a yellow and grey

tracksuit(运动套装). For Mr Liu, the Maoist anthem(赞美诗;颂歌) of the 1960s may arouse

memories more vivid than those he has of his immediate past. Now in his

seventies, he has dementia(痴呆症), an incurable brain disease that is often

revealed by a loss of short-term memory(短时记忆). For two years Mr Liu has lived at

the Qianhe Nursing Home in northern Beijing in a facility for around 75 dementia

patients. They are among the few sufferers of this condition in China who

receive specialist care.

Dementia has mostly been a rich-world sickness, because it becomes more

common as people live longer. China is fast catching up. Life expectancy(期待寿命)

increased from 45 in 1960 to 77 now, and the population is ageing rapidly: one

person in six is over 60 now; by 2025 nearly one in four will be. Factors that

increase the (age-adjusted) risk of developing dementia are also on the rise,

including obesity(肥胖症), smoking, lack of exercise and diabetes(糖尿病).

Already about 9 m people in China have some form of dementia. In absolute

terms, that is more than twice as many as in America.(从绝对数看，这个数字是美国的两倍以上。) It is

also more than double the number in India, a country with a population similar

in size to China’s but a much younger one. Nearly two-thirds of China’s

sufferers have the form known as Alzheimer’s(老年痴呆症), cases of which have tripled

since 1990. The number of Alzheimer’s patients may increase another fourfold

between now and 2050.

China’s government is woefully(不幸地) unprepared for this crisis, with a severe

lack of health-care provision for sufferers. So too is the public. Despite

recent public-information campaigns, many Chinese regard dementia as a natural

part of ageing, not as a disease, and do not know that it is fatal. Others see

it as a psychological ailment(疾病) rather than a degeneration of the brain

itself. It carries a stigma(污名) of mental illness, making sufferers and their

relatives reluctant to seek help. This compounds(使......严重化) the suffering

caused by dementia: active management can sometimes slow its progress.

Even at the Qianhe Nursing Home, where Mr Liu lives, some aspects of the care

appear crude(初级的;原始的). A shared “activity” space for dementia sufferers has no

games or toys to entertain them; relatives are discouraged from visiting more

than once a week for fear of “disturbing” their kin (in the West, care homes

encourage visits, which can be stimulating and provide a sense of warmth and

familiarity). Some dementia patients end up in psychiatric wards, which cannot

deal effectively with their specific requirements. There is an acute shortage of

medical workers qualified to treat sufferers(合格的医护工作人员严重缺乏来治疗患者。). One reason is

that few are attracted to the work. Zhang Xiurong, 50, a care assistant at

Qianhe, is paid less than 3,000 yuan ($450) a month, close to the average

national migrant wage, to provide all patients’ basic needs 12 hours a day, with

only four days off a month. “No Chinese parent wants their one daughter to work

in a hospital cleaning bedpans,” says Michael Phillips of the Shanghai Jiao Tong

University School of Medicine.