By the year 2040, 21% of the U.S. population—one in five Americans—will be 65 years old or older and there will be almost four times as many very old people, over 85, as there are today, as documented by the Institute of Aging (1996).
The crisis in the well known nursing shortage is two-fold: there is a greater need for nurses by more persons, particularly those living lifetimes with sometimes multiple co-morbidities; and there is a significant decrease in the number of young persons entering the nursing profession.