Living to 100 Doesn't Mean Living Poorly

TUESDAY, Aug. 19 (HealthDay News) -- Living longer, even past the 100-year mark, doesn't necessarily mean that a person's last years will be spent in sickness or disability, Danish researchers report. That's because the very old typically enjoy healthy, independent lives despite their advanced age, the study found.

"This finding is not surprising," said Dr. James S. Goodwin, a professor of geriatrics and director of the Sealy Center on Aging at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. "Because when you think about it logically, the reason we're living longer is because we're healthier. And if we're healthier at any given age, then we're less likely to be disabled."

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The new finding is based on assessments of the physical and mental health of Danish citizens in their 90s. These elderly were tested periodically on their ability to take care of themselves as they approached their 100th year.

Goodwin -- who was not involved in the study -- believes it also refutes the prevalent notion that an aging population will bring about skyrocketing health care expenditures. Such theories hold that, "all the nursing homes will choke, as more and more people spend much more time disabled," Goodwin said. "But in reality, that hasn't really worked out to be the case."

The new study was led by Dr. Kaare Christensen of The Danish Aging Research Center at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense. The team reported its findings in the Aug. 18-22 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

To gauge recent quality of life trends among the so-called "super-elderly", Christensen's team launched mental and physical health surveys in 1998 that focused on an initial group of almost 2,300 Danish men and women, all of whom had been born in 1905.

The researchers did not exclude anyone on the basis of prior health issues or cognitive status at the start of the study. In all, four surveys were conducted -- one approximately every two years-- and all tracked the same group of individuals as they aged from 92 to 100.