随着社会、经济和技术的发展，人们期望长寿。事实上，在过去的一个世纪里，人类活得更长是一个无可争辩的事实。随着人类寿命的延长，老龄化已成为一个全球性的社会问题，涉及到老年人的健康问题、社会保障制度和社会服务要求等。对于老年人的健康问题，随着年龄的增长，患病率将大大提高，尤其是癌症、心血管疾病、关节炎和痴呆等疾病。为了在一定程度上保持健康和治愈疾病，老年人比年轻人消耗更多的处方药。而处方药的产量是否应该提高以满足老年人维持健康的需求是一个值得探索的社会课题。
在本研究中，我们将根据英国的老龄化情况讨论上述问题。和其他国家一样，英国也面临着严重的老龄化问题，更多的老年人必须消耗更多的处方药来维持健康。为了探讨老龄化与处方药消费之间的实际关系，本研究首先根据杂志、报纸、文献等的二次数据，对英国老年人的癌症、心血管疾病、关节炎和痴呆的患病率进行了回顾，并对英国老年人的销售额进行了分析。英国针对癌症、心血管疾病、关节炎和痴呆的处方药随着老年人口的增加而发生了相应的变化，第三，通过从杂志、报纸、文献等方面的二次数据来探讨老龄化与处方药销售量之间的关系，以预测处方药的产量。应增加麻醉药品，以满足老年人维持健康的需要。
With the development of society, economy and technology, people expect longevity. Indeed, over the past century, it is an indisputable fact that humans are living longer. With the longevity of human life, aging has become a global social issue involved with health problems of the elderly, social security system and social service requirements and so on. For the health problems of the elderly, with increasing age, the prevalence probability will be greatly increased, especially for the diseases of cancer, cardiovascular disease (CVD), Arthritis and Dementia. In order to maintain health and cure diseases to some extent, the elderly consume more prescription drugs comparing with young people.[] Whether the yield of prescription drugs should be increased to satisfy the requirements of the elderly to maintain health is a worth exploring social topic.
In the research, the above topic will be discussed based on the aging situation in UK. Like other countries, UK is also facing serious aging issues that more elderly people have to consume more prescription drugs to maintain health. In order to explore the actual relationship between aging and the consumption of prescription drugs, in the study, firstly, the prevalence of cancer, CVD, Arthritis and Dementia in the elderly in the UK has changed during the past will be reviewed based on secondary data from magazine, newspaper, literatures, etc. Secondly, how the sales volume of the prescription drugs to cancer, CVD, Arthritis and Dementia in UK has changed correspondingly to more elderly population will be explored by secondary data also from magazine, newspaper, literatures, etc. Thirdly, the relationship between aging and the sales volume of prescription drugs will be concluded to predict whether the yield of prescription drugs should be increased to satisfy the requirements of the elderly to maintain health.
Population Background 人口背景
Within the ten year period of 2004 to 2014, the UK total population has increased by 8.2% from 59.6 million to 64.6 million. While the elderly population which generally defines as people above age 65 have increase by almost 20% (19.8%) from 9 million to 11.3 millions. As illustrate in table X, The number of males aged 85 and over in the UK has increase by 61.8% since mid-2004. Meanwhile, according to Parliament.UK (2010), about three million persons in UK are more than 80 years old. However, the number will be doubled by 2030 and reached 8 million by 2050. Namely, one-in-six population in UK will be aged more than 65 by 2030 and one-in-four by 2050.
Table X. The UK population total population and 65+ population in 2004, 2009 and 2014
According to Mukhtar & Jackson (2015), the prevalence and per capita medical costs of the elderly is higher than that of the young. Most of the elders have chronic non-communicable diseases with long course of treatment and large costs. The elderly drug consumption has taken up more than half of drug consumption market in developed countries. Among a person’s life, 80% of drug consumption occurred in the last 20 years .Therefore, due to the rapid expansion of elder population and the proportion, the consumption of domestic pharmaceutical and medical devices is expected to increase correspondingly.[]
Figure X. The prevalence rate of seven comment types of disease in different ages.
With aging problem, the frequency of a disease increase with increasing senescence. Few examples of aging-associated disease woul
