ABSTRACT
The Arab world is passing through a “health transition phase”, characterized by an unprecedented increase in both number and proportion of adults and elderly persons. Improvement of healthcare has been achieved by a combination of technical advances, social organization, and health expenditure and health education. In addition, an increase in chronic disorders of old age and increased medical needs of the aged will make enormous demands on the healthcare systems of the region. Governments in the area continue to assume that families will continue to take care of their own elderly members, despite objective projections indicating that long-term care will be an important part of healthcare planning in the future. There is a need for schools to modify their curricula to address national or local health needs, to emphasize primary healthcare and preventive medicine, and to prepare health professionals to be responsive to demographic changes.
