The American Geriatric Society and the World Health Organization define the oldest-old as individuals aged over 80 years, while the British Geriatrics Society uses 85 years as a threshold. In recent publications, the cut off was fixed at 85 or 90 years and over [1,2,3].
Some authors define the age from 65 to 74 as pre-old age, while those aged over 75 are considered old. Similarly, one study differentiates the young-old from 60 to 69, the middle old from 70 to 79, and very old 80 years of age and older.
The World Health Organisation believes that most developed world countries characterise old age starting at 60 years and above. However, this definition isn't adaptable to a place like Africa, where the more traditional definition of an elder, or elderly person, starts between 50 to 65 years of age.
Although there are different ways to classify this population, some studies have classified elderly adults between the ages of 65 and 74 years as youngest-old, those between ages 75 and 84 years as middle-old, and those aged over 85 years as oldest-old [5].
Middle-aged respondents cited 70 as the start of old age while those 65 and older put the number closer to 74.
Australia's older generation (those aged 65 and over) continues to grow in number and as a share of the population. The ageing of the population creates both pressures and opportunities for Australia's health and welfare sectors.
Older adults need about the same amount of sleep as all adults—7 to 9 hours each night. But, older people tend to go to sleep earlier and get up earlier than they did when they were younger.
The average life expectancy in the United States is 9.1 years for 80-year-old white women and 7.0 years for 80-year-old white men. Conclusions: For people 80 years old or older, life expectancy is greater in the United States than it is in Sweden, France, England, and Japan.
The study, supported by the American Insurance Group, found that, on average, a 75-year-old American woman with no chronic conditions will live 17.3 additional years (that's to more than 92 years old).
Women age 85 in the U.S. can expect to live an additional 7.2 years; men an additional 6.1 years.
According to the United States Social Security Administration, anyone age 65 or older is elderly.
Recent brain research indicates that birth to age three are the most important years in a child's development.
A theoretical study suggested the maximum human lifespan to be around 125 years using a modified stretched exponential function for human survival curves.
Your Bones, Joints, and Muscles
Your muscles get weaker, and the tendons -- which connect muscles to your skeleton -- get stiffer. This will decrease your strength and flexibility. In your 70s, you might lose an inch or two off your height as disks in your back flatten.
The major cause of death in the 55-64 age group is cancer followed by heart disease and injury. In the 75+ age group, the leading cause shifts to heart disease, and injury drops below Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), cerebrovascular diseases, and pneumonia.
The study, published in the journal Age and Ageing, also found that if the father lived to 90, it did not correlate to increased longevity and health in daughters. However, if both the mother and father lived to 90, the likelihood of the daughter achieving longevity and healthy aging jumped to 38%, researchers said.
For women and men, life expectancy of 79.1 years and 73.2 years reflects a long-apparent, significant gap.
Age 90 isn't some wild outlier. The SOA's data suggests that a 65-year-old male today, in average health, has a 35% chance of living to 90; for a woman the odds are 46%.
One way leads to a two-in-three chance reaching age 85. The other cutsthose odds to about one in five. A road map for that healthy old age comes from a remarkable study of 5,820American men of Japanese descent. Studied since 1965, when they were an average54 years old, the surviving men now range in age from 85 to 105.
Finally, children born today will live longer than any other generation. About 2/3 will live past 80, and 1/3 past 90.
According to their internal body clock, most older adults need to go to sleep around 7 p.m. or 8 p.m. and wake up at 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. Many people fight their natural inclination to sleep and choose to go to bed several hours later instead.
Boredom, depression, chronic pain and/or nutritional deficiencies can be some of the underlying causes that account for excessive daytime sleeping. Medications can also be a problem.
Some sleep experts suggest that seniors actually need less sleep than other age groups. Most people need between 7 and 9 hours of sleep whereas many seniors can get away with 7.5 hours. Other experts believe that seniors need just as much sleep as the rest of the population.
When are we considered old? For women, the old age threshold is about 73; for men, 70.