A person who reaches age 65 today can expect to live at least another 17 years. But that quantity of life may be at the expense of its quality. Many older people question the wisdom of life extended by invasive technology; robbed of independence and dependent on others for basic functions like bathing, eating, using the toilet or transferring from a bed to a chair and back.
Because of this, more and more people are asking how they can increase their chances of enjoying the additional years by staying healthy and aging gracefully.
A landmark study examined the factors that could predict healthy aging; almost 7,000 people in Alameda County, Calif. participated over a 20-year period from 1965-1984. The study, conducted by Dr. Jack M. Guralnik, M.D., of the U.S. National Institute on Aging and George A. Kaplan of the California Department of Health Services, was published in the American Journal of Public Health in June 1989.
The paper focused on people who were 65 to 89 years old in 1984. The study found that, of the original group, 41 percent had died before 1984 and 12.7 percent were in a "high-function" group. "High-function" was defined as being able to handle the basics of daily living plus such physical activities as:
-- climbing stairs or walking one-half mile
-- gardening
-- shopping
-- walking, swimming or other sports exercise and
-- vigorous exercise (jogging, bicycling, tennis, dancing).
The factors which predict successful aging offer both optimism (because of those which can be influenced by an individual) and pessimism (because of societal and financial pressures not so easily addressed by individuals).
High-function people -- the 12.7 percent who had aged successfully when examined in 1984 -- were the ones who (in 1965):
-- had adequate incomes,
-- were not African Americans,
-- had normal blood pressure,
-- had no arthritis,
-- had no back pain,
-- did not smoke,
-- had moderate weight and
-- were moderate consumers of alcohol.
It's an indictment of the inequities of American society that people who were not African Americans were 4.1 times more likely to be successful agers. Likewise, those with adequate incomes were 4.9 times more likely to age successfully.
People with normal blood pressure were 6.7 times more likely to be very active; those with no arthritis, 2.4 times and those with no back pain, 1.9 times more likely.
It's no surprise that cigarette smokers were 6.1 times more likely to be dead or fail to make the high-function group.
People with moderate weight (defined as less than 10 percent under or 30 percent over the Metropolitan Life Insurance height/weight table) were 2.6 times more apt to age successfully.
Those who drank alcohol moderately (1 to 60 drinks per month) were 3.1 times more likely to age successfully than abstainers. Moderate drinkers were also 2.5 times as likely to age successfully as heavy drinkers.