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 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].
One study distinguishes the young-old (60 to 69), the middle-old (70 to 79), and the very old (80+). Another study's sub-grouping is young-old (65 to 74), middle-old (75 to 84), and oldest-old (85+). A third sub-grouping is young-old (65 to 74), old (74 to 84), and old-old (85+).
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].
So, when are you considered old? The World Health Organisation believes that most developed world countries characterise old age starting at 60 years and above.
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.
Women age 85 in the U.S. can expect to live an additional 7.2 years; men an additional 6.1 years.
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).
According to the research, the average American starts feeling old at the age of 47. Similarly, the average respondent starts to really worry about age-related bodily changes around 50 years old.
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.
About 2/3 will live past 80, and 1/3 past 90. Almost one in ten girls born now will live past 100.
Esty found that most 80-year-olds experience less anger, worry and stress than they did in past decades. Through time and experience, people in their 80s have already experienced loss and other difficult situations and learned to cope better than other age groups.
Physical and mental health
Most of the women (59 percent) and men (62 percent) rated themselves as being in good, very good or excellent health. Many 90-somethings said they not only felt physically healthy, but also experienced good emotional well-being: About 77 percent of them reported no symptoms of depression.
Recent brain research indicates that birth to age three are the most important years in a child's development.
According to the United States Social Security Administration, anyone age 65 or older is elderly.
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.
By age 75, the percentage of body fat typically doubles compared with what it was during young adulthood. Too much body fat can increase the risk of health problems, such as diabetes Diabetes Mellitus (DM) and Disorders of Blood Sugar Metabolism . The distribution of fat also changes, changing the shape of the torso.
Today a person 90 years of age is expected to live on average another 4.6 years (versus 3.2 years in 1929–1931), and those who pass the century mark are projected to live another 2.3 years.
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.
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.
While a 30- to 90-minute nap in older adults appears to have brain benefits, anything longer than an hour and a half may create problems with cognition, the ability to think and form memories, according to the study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.