THE NEW OLD AGE. Part 2
AS I BECOME AN OCTOGENERIAN DOCTOR, I LOOK AT OLD AGE DIFFERENTLY
The new old age physically and mentally is at least ten years younger than old, old age.
During my medical school years, we were told by our teachers that whenever we present a patient’s problem, we should always start by stating the age of the patient. I initially didn’t understand why the age of the patient is so important, since diseases randomly could hit anybody in any age group.
Later in my training, it became clear to me that certain diseases are most seen in certain age groups. Having the patient’s age in mind helps us to diagnose patients’ problems better.
Patients’ age also serves another purpose for doctors. It dictates that doctors do everything possible for a young patient to save his/her life in an emergency with emotional involvement, while remaining calm and doing only necessary intervention to save the life of an elderly patient in the same situation.
There is another aspect of aging that has become a bothersome concern for me. It is which aspect of aging should we take more into consideration - chronological or biological age, when we make age related decisions?
We all age differently. Advancements in medical sciences, medical care, prevention, diet and nutrition, healthy lifestyles and the importance of physical and mental exercises have extended our life span for ten-to-fifteen years, with preservation of physical and mental health.
It becomes very clear that chronological age, after all, may not be that relevant for employment and retirement decisions, compared to biological age. However, when chronological age is very easy, just looking at the birth date to determine, biological age is much more difficult to determine.
Furthermore, research in a new brand of medicine, called longevity medicine, which is well financed with tech billionaires’ financial contributions, is trying to extend the human life span to the maximum -which is believed to be 125 to 130 years.
However, while trying to extend life span is important, a basic question must be raised here - who wants to live that long with the miseries of old age, such as aches and pains, disabilities, multiple degenerative old age -related diseases of heart failures, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, hearing and visual loss, arthritis, dependency to others for self-care?
As I see it, the aim of longevity medical research should be not only be to extend life span, but even more importantly, to extend the health span, as well.
As the world population is increasing and surpassing 8 billion and growing older, is it really wise for researchers to try to slow down and even try to reverse aging?
In an upcoming future article, we shall talk about longevity medicine in more detail.
