Health committee  When we're talking about integrated care, I also think we need to refocus and think about integrated care in the community. There are some people who need to go into institutions, but we need to keep a lot of seniors at home. That was a re-referencing. And then the funding--

Health committee  I think there are a number of things. A dialogue at the federal-provincial level is essential. We need research because we need to understand a lot more about co-morbidity, the issues of people who have more than one health condition. One health condition can interfere with another and may lead to yet another.

Health committee  Well, very briefly, first of all, I looked at the literature. I found over 1,000 papers that mentioned the baby boomer population, and they said things like, oh, it's going to be awful, there are going to be a lot more people, we won't have any health professionals. When I whittled it down, I found only 20 papers that actually had evidence out of that 1,000.

Health committee  I have two very quick comments. One is that only a tiny minority of older people are actually in wheelchairs. Most can walk, probably not very well, but they can walk. So there are two things. One, as I indicated in my presentation, is to stop people from deteriorating because they lack physical fitness.

Health committee  Neurological disorders, I think, have been largely neglected. They are perhaps one of the most common causes of very severe disability and of course occur more frequently with aging and also in conjunction with other conditions. It will be very good to get prevalence estimates and also to learn more about their consequences for individuals.

Health committee  Thank you. I'd just like to add to and echo what you said earlier about using other health professionals. A lot of health care for older people in the community and people as they age can be delivered by physical therapists, particularly for musculoskeletal disorders, by nurses, and we can use chiropractors, occupational therapists.

Health committee  In a word, yes. They're doing a great job. They have e-mailed researchers who are interested in the field regularly to keep them up to date about their calls. I'm very grateful to them, because I've just gotten a grant from them to investigate whether baby boomers are in fact going to be less or more healthy than their older counterparts, because we don't know the answer to the question, whether it's going to be better or worse than we feared.

Health committee  Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to come today. I'm going to continue with the theme of chronic disease, and I'll change the tempo a little bit to be a bit more personal. I'm very delighted that you're interested in chronic diseases related to aging. This is my long-term research interest as an epidemiologist and health services researcher.