Other reliable surveys combine factors of family history and your lifestyle to arrive at an estimate of longevity. This survey (below) may make you feel better if, like Richard’s and mine, your family history is not filled with 100-year feats of aging. It focuses on activities over which you have some control. When I applied for life and disability insurance, the agent asked me if I participated in high-risk activities such as piloting aircraft, scuba diving, sky diving, unprotected sex, or intravenous drug use. (more…)

There is strong consensus among geriatricians and gerontologists that frailty is a clinical state of increased vulnerability and decreased ability to maintain homeostasis that is age-related problems and centrally characterized by declines in functional reserves across multiple physiologic systems. This vulnerability is age-related and also related to, but distinct from, disability and elderly disease states. (more…)

It is estimated that about 6 million Americans over 65 suffer from depression in late life. The sad reality is that 10% are looking for and get treatment of late life depression. It is common that many illness and disabilities are accompanying late-life depression. When people reach certain age in this age, your support system begins to collapse. Family and friends, Spouses, siblings and friends die. You are about to retire or move. People with depression are likely to see a decline in quality of life. This can deprive them personal joy and productivity and he hope for the future. (more…)

Depression in late life is closely linked with senescence at a very basic level. Before discussing medical illness and disease processes, however, it will be helpful to review some more basic processes that may trigger, or at the very least exacerbate, depression through biochemical or neuroanatomical mechanisms. (more…)

The reduced physiological reserve after the one quoted above includes anatomical changes associated with aging, functional respiratory, urinary tract and gastrointestinal tract. In the case of the respiratory system is well established that the lung function deteriorates with increasing age. Some of the anatomical changes that contribute to loss of function include:

(a) Decline broncheolar average diameter, (more…)