On Age

This semester we're doing developmental psychology, which for the commoners among you means "the scientific study of systematic psychological changes that occur in human beings over the course of the life span." (thanks Wikipedia). As part of this course I've taken a seminar on successful aging, which is something that has interested me for the last couple of years.

I have to do a presentation in this seminar, and the topic I picked is "layman's ideas on what successful aging is". So far I've read five different studies and here are some findings that I thought were very interesting (I am not going to give direct quotes, because they won't make sense without also giving all the statistical data, which will take ages, so I'm just going to summarise in my own words):

• most people over the age of 65 consider themselves as ageing well or very well, and most report being actually happy
  
• people who are miserable in their old age are usually so due to a physical impairment, which prevents them from doing things. This is not as self-explanatory as it sounds though... a lot of people even in wheelchairs are happy and see their wheelchair not as an obstacle, but as something that actually helps them move and be independent. So the people who are not happy are the ones who are either completely bed-ridden, or haven't found anything positive in their situation.
• 40% of people, having reached "old age" found it to be better than what they expected (as in what they expected it to be when they were still younger); with 52% saying that their earlier (younger) perception of "old age" hasn't changed, and 8% said it was worse.
• people who keep mentally active in their older years are a lot less likely to suffer from dementia
  
• physical appearance is still important in old age. This was interesting, because many young people think that older people don't really care about what they look like, or don't try to look attractive.
  
• being happy in old age does not only depend on being healthy, but on many other factors, such as financial status (having enough money), being able to do things for oneself, and one of the very important aspects is having social relationships and being able to help others.
• even quite a few people with chronic conditions were happy in their old age, as they were able to find things (compensate) which they were able to do instead and take pleasure from that, rather than looking at things that they couldn't do anymore.
• when asked what age would be the "ideal" age, most people considered middle age to be the best age.
  
• Men and women understand what it means to be "successfully ageing" in identical terms, and there is no great difference in gender and how happy they are in their old age
• even though in general our bodies don't function as well in older years, cognitive losses are reversible... so we don't have to forget things "forever"... with training we can still do calculus even if we're 90

The reason I find all this so interesting, is that for some time now I've been thinking about what it will be like to be old. Of course it worries me, and makes me wonder whether I'll be happy or how not to be scared of it. But reading all this really opened my eyes onto the fact that the majority of old people are actually quite happy, even in the cases of those who are very ill. A lot of people found old age to be better than what they expected. On top of that something that we always talked about in my immediate family is that cognitive function is very important in order to prevent dementia and not to be "out of it" - and now I have some "scientific proof" that this indeed is the case. So really being old doesn't sound all that different to being young... it sounds like it's just about adapting to what life throws at you, and taking things as they come. Ahhh... I think I still have a lot to learn :)

"One of the many things nobody ever tells you about middle age is that it's such a nice change from being young." Dorothy Canfield



For fear of breaching copyright, here is the list of articles where my summaries are from :) ...

1. Rowe, Kahn "Successful Aging" 1997, The Gerontological Society of America
2. Knight, Ricciardelli "Successful Aging: Perceptions of adults aged between 70 and 101 years" 2003, Aging and Human Development
3. Charbonneau-Lyons, et. al. "Opinions of college students and independent-living adults regarding successful aging" 2002, Educational Gerontology
4. Phelan, et. al. "Older Adults' Views of "Successful Aging" - How do they compare with Researchers' Definitions?" 2004, JAGS
5. Bowling "Lay perceptions of successful ageing: findings from a national survey of middle aged and older adults in Britain" 2006, Eur J Ageing