Earlier in October 2018 our organisation The APDA celebrated the UN's International Day of Older Persons. The celebrations also included talks on 'Healthy Ageing'. It is now fully accepted that we all are living longer, which means we need more care activities in society.

In the UK, people realise the enormity of this issue and are scrambling into action with policies and programmes to address this problem.

The Centre for Policy in Ageing, British Geriatric Society, Runnemede & Joseph Rowntree Trusts, Help Age, Local & Central Government Policies are all seriously looking into this matter. However, in several developing countries with limited resources, people have been very slow to come up with effective policies to address this area of concern. This is despite reliable forecasts made about larger and faster growth expected in developing countries. Without effective social welfare safety nets in place in developing countries there are serious health issue to be taken into consideration because ageing is sometimes accompanied by age related illnesses such as physically affected mobility disabilities and mentally incapacitating diseases like Alzheimer, Dementia and Depression etc.

It is therefore very advisable that in developing countries, policies are formulated for implementation at national levels and at local and regional levels and that NGOs and local authorities introduce more health and well-being projects to keep elderly people mentally and physically active and prevent them from acquiring age related ailments.