Healthy Aging: Definition and Scope

Abstract

Age is relatively easy to measure. By a long-established standard, human age is measured in years, the amount of time it takes for the planet we live on to make one rotation around our sun. Aging is more difficult to define and measure. Health is also difficult to define and measure. Good health and poor health mean different things to different people and especially to patients and their healthcare providers.

All living things change with increasing age, initially by growing and developing and eventually when they are older, by experiencing age-related changes which affect function and which ultimately make the organism more prone to disease, disability and death. Human life expectancy is increasing, though the maximum age to which a human lives does not appear to be changing at the same rate, if at all. There are clear benefits to a long life, particularly if that life is healthy, functionally independent, happy, secure, and fulfilled. There are great personal, family, and societal burdens when old age is complicated by long periods of disease, disability, and dependency.