It seems to me that there is a marked difference in how much capability people of the same age will retain when elderly. For instance, there may be an 80-year-old who appears mentally and physically to be perfectly fine and moves about on their own, but a person younger than them who is in a nursing home needing assistance. To those older or in medicine, when do major milestones in aging generally occur and how variable are they?
Who are “them”?
In my experience, “milestones” aren’t nearly as common as a gradual decline. As we age, infirmities (both physical and mental) just sort of creep gradually into existence until one day we can’t help but notice them. This varies so much among individuals that I don’t think it’s possible to generalize. Kids can get heart attacks and the elderly can get chicken pox.
Non-accident-related events (e.g. heart attacks, strokes) usually occur after a long period of gradual decline.
I like the crack made by the late George Burns. He said something to the effect that, “Some people practice being old.”
Obviously he didn’t.
As old age creeps up on us, we can avoid many of the sad/bad effects by not smoking, exercising, eating properly and generally leading a healthy life, and keeping a positive outlook. Most important, however, is carefully choosing your ancestors.
Me, I’m lucky. At 79 still climb a local mountain almost every day, hike, backpack and now and then climb the really big mountains and otherwise act like an idiot. My father, uncles and grandparents all lived into their late 80s, so I’m aiming for 104.
Yeah, have got some physical infirmities, but try to ignore them. As to mental problems, no comment.
At my club I have a group that plays racketball 3 times a week. We have one 25 year old. The rest are above 60. Everybody is strong and alert. We have a 69 year old that beats the very good players in the ckub. We play min 2 hours. Heads are clear and no signs of being addlepated are there.I would suggest vigorous exercise to fight ageing.We all do crossword puzzles too. We copy the NYT and Wall St. Journal puzzles and pass them around. Dont use it you lose it.