Dear George,
I have a big birthday coming up next month. Eighty-five — the biggest number so far. Since 66% of people born in 1937 are no longer with us (1), I should appreciate being around to celebrate this event, and I do. However, it’s still a bit unnerving. Gerontologists call the “85 and over” age group the “old old” or the “oldest old”, a life stage associated with risk of degenerative disease and disability, loss of autonomy, and physical dependence upon others.
I prefer to rely upon a British radio station that asked their 85 and older listeners to vote on a new name for people in their age bracket. (15) The number one choice was “Real Senior” (40%), followed by Long Lived” (26%), Wisdom Warriors (12%), and the “Very Oldies” or the “Venerables”. I googled “Real Senior”, and the first thing I got was an organization that helps people remain in their homes as long as possible. (7) Not too reassuring. Then I tried “age 85”, “85 years old”, “oldest old”, etc. Here are some of the things I found.
The first thing I noticed confirmed my belief that statistics lie. Most research studies and reviews use “85 and over” as an age group category. However, “85 and over” has an interesting feature. All the earlier age groups are typically in five-year increments, e.g., 40-44, 55-59, etc. “85 and over”, though, is open-ended. Like we’ll just lump all these ancient people into a single category, whether they’re 86 or 102. In one empirical study the researchers reported that members of the 85 and over category in their sample ranged between 85 and 103. That’s a big spread. Looking at census data, about 66% of 85 and overs are 85-89, 26% are 90-94, and 8% are 95 or older. Consequently. “85 and over” (hereafter 85+) is broader and less precise than other age categories and may not be particularly descriptive of persons who are 85.
The second thing is that researchers and reviewers tend to focus on negative attributes of the Real Old, i.e., disease, disability, death. However, there are always alternative ways of viewing any given finding. For example, one research team found that 37% of 85+ people have severe visual impairments. (9) This is, of course, an important and distressing finding. Note, however, that we can conclude with equal validity that 63% of 85+ people do not have severe visual impairments. Below I’m going to report some of the research findings I’ve run across on Real Seniors, but turning the reported results around to state them in an optimistic direction.
*80% of 85+ people live in their own home or apartment, and only 8% live in nursing homes. (12)
*A British study found that 59% of 85+ respondents reported feeling no more lonely than they had a decade previously. (5)
*By age 85 80% of people show no meaningful loss of muscle mass and strength. (6)
*About 50% of adults over age 85 do not have hearing impairments. (6)
*82% of people 85 and over do not report clinically relevant depressive symptoms. (8)
*About 20 out of 100,000 people 85+ commit suicide in a given year (0.000002%). (11)
*Despite decreasing thirst perception with age, 59% of 85+ people drink sufficient liquids daily. (17)
*According to Webmd, a study of 1,299 women 85 years and older found that 77% do not have mild cognitive impairment and 82% do not have dementia. (16)
*47% of persons age 85+ report no difficulty performing any daily living activity. (8)
*A U.S. survey study found that 51% of elderly persons (85+) did not have a need to be driven places, 65% did not need support in taking care of their residence or assistance in shopping, and 77% did not need assistance with housekeeping activities. (14)
*In 2018 the percent of adults 85+ who did not need help with personal care was 79%. (2)
*A study of 125 older adults (85+) found that, compared to younger age groups, they score as high or higher on scales measuring resilience, coherence, purpose in life, and self-transcendence. (13)
Here’s my way of summing this up: A majority of people in the 85 and over age bracket in the U.S. live in their own homes or apartments; do not have hearing impairments or severe visual impairments; do not show muscle loss; do not exhibit clinical symptoms of depression; have a near-zero probability of committing suicide; do not need assistance in driving, shopping, housekeeping activities, or personal care. While any given individuals might not show all of these attributes, it seems clear that a hefty number of adults 85 and over function effectively in the world, physically, mentally, and socially. So much for the negative stereotypes of the “oldest old”. The next question is how one can age successfully as a Real Senior. I hope to get back to you on that.
Love,
Dave
SOURCES:
(1) 247wallst.com, “How Many People Are Still Alive From the Year You Were Born,” 7-31-21;
(2) sci.gov, “2019 Profile of Older Americans,” May 2020;
(3) apa.org, “A snapshot of today’s older adults,” Sept. 2021;
(4) assets.aarp.org, “Chronic Conditions Among Older Americans,” undated;
(5) cambridge.org, “An investigation into the patterns of loneliness and loss in the oldest old,” 10-30-15;
(6) frontiersin.org, “Age-Related Disease and Clinical and Public Health Implications for the 85 Years Old and Over Population,” 12-11-17;
(7) help4seniors.org, “Stay Independent at Home,” undated;
(8) imaging.org, “Read how IOA views aging in American,” undated;
(9) ncbi.nim.nih.gov, “Blood pressure and mortality in elderly people,” 6-13-98;
(10), ncoaorg, “Get the Facts on Healthy Aging,” 1-1-21;
(11) npr.org, “Isolated And Struggling, Many Seniors Are Turning To Suicide,” 7-27-19;
(12) pew research.org, “Growing Old in America,” 6-29-09;
(13) pubmed.ncbi.nim.nih.gov, Resilience, sense of coherence, purpose in life and self-transcendence…,” 7-9-05;
(14) soa.org, “Retirement Experiences of People Age 85 and Our,” 2019;
(15) the guardian.com, “Keep it ‘Real Senior’,” 12-15-14;
(16) webmd.com, “Prevalence of Dementia Increases Dramatically After Age 90, Study Finds,” 5-9-11;
(17) en.wikipedia.org, “Old age”, undated
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