Aging Well: The Complete Guide to Physical and Emotional Health - Softcover

Wei, Jeanne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0471082066 ISBN 13: 9780471082064

Verlag: Wiley, 2001

Inhaltsangabe

In this definitive, prescriptive guide to all aspects of aging, the authors-both top experts on aging at Harvard Medical School-offer a complete and highly accessible reference focused on the physical and emotional issues that affect seniors and their loved ones. Here is invaluable advice on a range of topics, from lifestyle choices to retirement and insurance options to coping with loss and other life concerns. Aging Well addresses such increasingly important subjects as:

* Safety risks associated with growing older

* Alternative medicine and the right questions to ask

* Assisting aging parents and other challenges of the "sandwich generation"

* Mail-order products for seniors

* Healthy-aging research and potential therapies

* How to optimize and strengthen your health if your body is affected by illness or disease

Aging Well contains what you need to know to help you and your loved ones live fuller, healthier lives, whether you're 40, 50, or older-because aging well is living well.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jeanne Wei, M.D., Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of the Division on Aging at Harvard Medical School and Senior Physician at the Gerontology Division at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Sue Levkoff, Sc.D., is an Associate Professor of the Department of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Associate Professor of the Department of Health and Social Behavior in the Harvard Medical School of Public Health.

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In this definitive, prescriptive guide to all aspects of aging, the authors both top experts on aging at Harvard Medical School offer a complete and highly accessible reference focused on the physical and emotional issues that affect seniors and their loved ones. Here is invaluable advice on a range of topics, from lifestyle choices to retirement and insurance options to coping with loss and other life concerns. Aging Well addresses such increasingly important subjects as:

Safety risks associated with growing older

Alternative medicine and the right questions to ask

Assisting aging parents and other challenges of the "sandwich generation"

Mail-order products for seniors

Healthy-aging research and potential therapies

How to optimize and strengthen your health if your body is affected by illness or disease

Aging Well contains what you need to know to help you and your loved ones live fuller, healthier lives, whether you re 40, 50, or older because aging well is living well.

• Safety risks associated with growing older

• Alternative medicine and the right questions to ask

• Assisting aging parents and other challenges of the "sandwich generation"

• Mail-order products for seniors

• Healthy-aging research and potential therapies

• How to optimize and strengthen your health if your body is affected by illness or disease

Aging Well contains what you need to know to help you and your loved ones live fuller, healthier lives, whether you’re 40, 50, or older–because aging well is living well.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Aging Well

The Complete Guide to Physical and Emotional HealthBy Jeanne Y. Wei

John Wiley & Sons

Copyright © 2001 Jeanne Y. Wei
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780471082064

Excerpt

AGING WELL

Human aging is the sum total of all experiences and adaptations thata person undergoes from conception to death, including the complexprocesses of development, maturation, and attainment of wisdom.-J. Wei

When she was 55 years old, Elsie Frank went back to work to help educate herfourth child.

At 60, she moved to Boston to be closer to her children, one of whom was goingthrough a divorce and needed a hand in looking after her three little girls.

At 70, she retired from a job that she loved in order to help her oldest son,Massachusetts Congressional Representative Barney Frank, campaign in a verytight political race. Although she'd never done any public speaking before, sheovercame her initial nervousness and time and again rose to speak out on thepodium.

Today, at 86, Elsie Frank works as a volunteer to provide housing for homelesselders and serves as an advocate in many other organizations for the elderly. Inaddition to being a valuable source of wisdom and support for her family andfriends, her views on Social Security and Medicare are sought by communityleaders and politicians alike.

As she has grown older, the needs of Elsie's family and community have grown,too, but she hasn't retreated from taking an active role in the lives of thepeople around her. Instead, she has continued to step forward to help out, andin so doing, she has remained vital and connected in a remarkably positive way.She loves life.

We don't all have to become good public speakers in order to enjoy success inour later years, but we can learn a lot from Elsie's example of aging well byliving well. In this chapter, we talk about some different ways to look at whataging is, and about how we can keep our lives healthy, dynamic, and productive.

How We Age

What comes to mind when you think of aging? Do you think of a downhill slope, anuphill climb, or simply another bend in the road? Research has shown that agingis a very complex, multifaceted process. Let's look at how this stage of life isviewed by gerontologists, specialists who study aging and have expertisein treating the problems of older people.

Chronological Age

Chronological age relates to the number of years that we have livedsince we were born. Several factors have a role in our longevity, including oursex and our genes. The average life expectancy for women in the United Stateswho were 65 years old in 1980 is 83.7 years; for men who were 65 in 1980, it is79.8 years.

Although there is no single explanation for this sex difference, there are clearindications that men tend to die sooner than women from certain diseases andconditions (such as coronary artery disease). Smoking, the most preventablecause of death in the world, is more prevalent among men than women.Unfortunately, however, lung-cancer deaths in women have been rising, due toincreased smoking by women. Gender differences in lifestyle and healthmaintenance might partly contribute to the fact that women enjoy longer lives.However, living longer may not necessarily be a cause for celebration becausetwice as many women as men live at or below the poverty line, the median incomeof older women is only 57% of that for older men, and 41% of women over the ageof 65, in contrast to 16% of older men, live alone.

In addition to sex differences, some other genetic factors also appear toinfluence the aging process. One of our colleagues, Thomas Perls, has done somefascinating research with the "oldest old" - those over age 95 years - and hasfound that many of these individuals are mentally and physically healthier thantheir somewhat younger peers in their 80s and early 90s. It's possible thatthese people have some genetic advantages that help them to overcome or copewith diseases.

How long and how well we live are not determined by any one single factor,however. Although our sex and our genetic makeup may partly contribute toaverage life expectancy, factors such as environment, lifestyle, and how we carefor our health are actually even more important.

Biological Age

Another way of looking at aging is to consider our biological age, whichhas more to do with our physical condition. For example, there appears to be arelationship between aging and "programmed cell death" (apoptosis) whichseems to be an essential part of the life of multicellular organisms such ashumans. However, the variations due to a person's susceptibility to disease andhis or her genetic makeup make it difficult for researchers to find a singleexplanation for physical decline with the passage of time. The aging processaffects each individual differently, and it even occurs at different rates amongvarious body systems within a single individual. Moreover, the decline infunction in one organ does not necessarily mean that others in the same bodywill decline, too.

Behavioral Age

Finally, gerontologists sometimes refer to behavioral age, which relatesto how old we act and how old we think of ourselves as being. Behavioral ageinvolves a person's ability to function independently. You've probably met twopeople who have the same medical diagnosis - such as arthritis or heart disease- and yet they radically differ in how well they function. One may be quitedisabled and completely dependent on others to get through the day, while theother, in spite of some limitations, may be completely self-sufficient and maybe able to perform activities of daily living (e. g., bathing, eating,dressing) with little or no difficulty.

A person's ability to function, rather than his or her disease, affects theperson's quality of life. Although we may encounter illnesses along the way,growing old is not the same thing as "functional decline." This book will helpyou to optimize and strengthen your functional reserves, so that whenone area of your body is affected by illness or disease, your functional levelsin other areas do not suffer.

Now let's look at some of the normal age-related changes and syndromes that tendto occur most commonly in older individuals.

Normal Changes in Later Life

Organ Function

In our later years, our organs sometimes may not work to the capacity that theydid when we were younger; hence, certain conditions may affect us with greaterseverity. Bacterial pneumonia, for instance, can become quite serious because ofour reduced lung function. Over time, our hearts may become less efficient, asscar tissue may take the place of healthy muscle tissue. We may experiencehardening of the arteries, or atherosclerosis, too. The chapters that followoffer specific suggestions for countering these changes with exercises, a gooddiet, and regular medical care.

Memory Loss

According to the Baltimore Longitudinal Study on Aging, which tests more than2,200 men and women every other year for physical and mental functioning,short-term memory in certain individuals tends to decline somewhat over timeafter age 70. Some individuals over the age of 70 may also experience a slightlyreduced ability to solve problems. As you'll discover in Chapter 6, though, ourbrains have plenty of cells to spare, and there are many things that we can doto strengthen our brain power. It's important to note that some forms offorgetfulness are also not related to increasing age; in fact, they are...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Wiley
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2001
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0471082066
• ISBN 13: 9780471082064
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 384
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Wiley-VCH GmbH; product_safety@wiley.com; ; Boschstrasse 12; Weinheim; 69469; Deutschland