Recently I saw a news story about an “elderly” man being mugged. The man was 62. 4 years younger than me. I don’t consider myself “elderly,” and certainly not someone younger than me. I could probably pass for 10 years under my age in both looks and attitude. To me, someone over 70 perhaps is “elderly,” but it really depends on the person. Some people act “elderly” when they’re 50! So, what age do you consider someone to be “elderly?”
Same as “old”, I reckon. I’m going to start calling myself “elderly” and “old” as soon as I get past 74. I’ve been middle-aged by my own self-identification since 37. Arbitrary, but what isn’t?
30 years older than whatever your current age is.
So for me, someone 79 and up is elderly.
Heh! 79up, the oooooooldcooola
From the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI); the title is; Vitamin B12 deficiency in the elderly; and the first line of the article is;
. I’m agreeing with them, 60 is elderly. It’s substantially younger than I am, but I’m not all hung up on labels.
It varies with context and, depending on context, the individual. My Jamaican landlady was 62yo when I met her, with a medical history This Thick; about as thick as my mother’s, I reckon, and my mother was once told “you’re 30 but your bones are old enough to be retired” (retirement age being 65yo, at the time). Both of them got to be “elderly” for many purposes, including which kind of medical checks they got, a lot younger than other people.
And XOldiesJock… sorry dude, but I tell you the same thing we told Mom whenever she said she shouldn’t have to wear hearing aids because “those are for old people!”: you are old.
Nava, definitely middle-aged.
How does one distinguish 60 ish from 80ish, then? It’s generally a huge difference in terms of general health and lifestyle. A 60 year old isn’t even retired!
To me, “elderly” starts at like 80. 65-80 is “old” or “older”. 90ish is “agéd”
There might have been a time when someone in their 60s would have qualified for “elderly”. But I don’t think the average, say, 65-year-old is who comes to mind when someone thinks of “elderly”.
I think “elderly” definitely fits someone 80 and up. It probably fits the majority of 70-somethings, but I’m guessing there are quite a few 70-somethings who don’t really ping as “elderly” because they are still active and youthful.
Old: 60-75
Elderly: 75+
I’m not sure about the word “elderly”.
But I think I can define “old”.
A person is “old” to you, if he is at a stage of life where he does things that you personally can’t imagine that you would want to do.
So for a teenager, old is anybody who wears a suit to work.
For a twentysomething, old is: somebody who spends more time talking about work than about his friends and the fun he has on weekends.
To a thirtysomething, old is: somebody who spends more time talking about retirement plans than his current life.
To a fiftysomething, old is: somebody who spends most of his conversation on medical problems.
To a seventysomething, old is:somebody who has already moved into assisted living,even if they are healthy.
In this context, I would think of an “elderly” person as someone who was significantly frailer, less vigorous, or more in need of assistance than they used to be, not due to illness or injury but just due to the effects of aging. That would be true of some 62-year-olds, but not others.
The other way to think about it is that all adults can be classified as “young,” “middle-aged,” or “elderly.” An elderly person is one who is no longer middle-aged. Of course, doesn’t really answer the question: you still have to say what counts as “middle-aged.”
When people aren’t surprised that you died or feel the need to ask why, then you are elderly.
I’m 73 and my brother is 76. Somewhere between these two is the cutoff age. It keeps changing.
My father started showing signs of dementia at 75. I’ll keep you posted.
I’d think that old starts at retirement age so 60 to 65.
well it used to be when you retired and signed up for medicare but since the goverment decided if you were disabled you qualified for medicare its just retirement …
lets just say as someone who gets medicare in his 40s i get a lot of shocked phone calls from salespeople who didnt know that…mail too…
It has been said that the definition of “old” is always 15 years older than your current age. 
I associate it with having some sort of age related frailty.
This is how I see it. I’m 65, and while I’m not as vigorous as I used to be, I can still haul a 40# bag of pellets in from the garage and dump it into the pellet stove. I can move the couch to vacuum behind it - heck, this morning, I moved the fridge (a challenge since the back wheels were stuck in something that had spilled some time ago.)
One BIL, on the other hand, just turned 60, and he’s got diabetes (self-inflicted) and heart problems, and he’s losing his sight. He’s certainly more elderly than I am.
Then there was my mom’s friend - very active as a hospital volunteer, very independent in his early 80s, and all of a sudden, stroked and died - he was never elderly.
I think it doesn’t really make sense to say “old” or “elderly” are based on the conditions of the individual - you have the same number of years, regardless of health, and there are people with such conditions in their 40s (or earlier) and it’d be wrong to call those individuals elderly. I think the terms have to simply apply as generalized, population-wide terms.
Next comes whether you think “old” and “elderly” are exactly equal or synonymous or they have different connotations to you.
Problem is, many people don’t like to think of themselves as old. Not sure how far back this goes, but I first read of it in regards to baby boomers. Articles saying they didn’t like “old” or “elderly” or"senior" or really any term that indicated age except “grandparent.” No idea if that was accurate, and it was many years ago I probably wouldn’t able to find it now. I recall something like when polled to when “old” applied, the average answer was like two years past average life expectancy (so probably 80 at the time). Or, maybe I’m misremembering it entirely and will be corrected by others here.
Anyway, as a person in late '30s, the absolute latest that “old” could start (give today’s technology and life expectancy and longevity norms) is probably 70. That’s ~90% of the life expectancy, and old enough you aren’t shocked to hear someone (that you don’t know the personal health of) has died, even though it’s well younger than typical. Bottom end is a little trickier. Medical expenses really pick up between 55-64, but I’m unsure how much of that is just screening and such. But then the argument could be made that the very fact that more screening (for typically age-related problems) is needed is indicative of being old, or at least getting there.
I guess I’m tempted to put the beginning of "old"as 60-65, but not am yet willing to commit to an exact number. This is based on several things. First, watching my parents age and seeing when health problems kicked up, etc. Second, on the general trend of medical spending. Third on being old enough to have grown grandchildren, even if both parent and grandparent were grown when they had children. 65+ is when Alzheimer’s is no longer “early-onset.”
Yes, plenty of people are still active and productive and some even still have full time jobs at 70 or 80 or even 90. You can be old and and be active and in good shape, and I’d say that’s what they are.
Elderly = someone not able to fend for himself due to age-related causes.
When I worked at the newspapers in Bangkok, some of the young whippersnapper Thai reporters kept writing about “elderly” folks in their 30s! No matter how many times we changed that, they kept doing it.
In my mind it’s 65, but I think that’s because I’ve been programmed that way due to Social Security and the retirement age, or at least what the retirement age uniformly used to be. I’m in my 60s now but not yet 65, and I do not consider myself elderly, although I do take advantage of the senior movie-ticket discount for those age 60 and above at our local theater chain.