Annual Review of Gerontology and Geriatrics, Vol. 33: Healthy Longevity, a Global Approach

Description

Developed countries and certain regions of economically emerging nations have displaying a rapidly growing population of the oldest-old-nonagenarians, centenarians, and supercentenarians. As this trend continues, we must redirect some of our research on aging to the experience of advanced old age and discovering individual and community factors that improve the quality of life during this life stage. This state-of-the science, multidisciplinary Annual provides a comprehensive discussion of the factors promoting healthy survival and/or ensuring a good quality of life for the oldest elderly. It features an international representation that includes Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Japan, and North America. The Annual disseminates the most current research regarding this population and notes gaps in our knowledge.

The book addresses ongoing demo-epidemiological changes regarding longevity, estimates of oldest-old populations, and prevalence of chronic and degenerative diseases, frailty, and old-age dependency. The meaning of healthy longevity as a theoretical concept is explored. Grounded in the fundamental issue of whether or not the prevalence of poor health or poor quality of life inevitably increases with age, recent research and ongoing studies from a variety of perspectives are presented from several nations. The book clarifies the known and hypothetical factors favoring healthy longevity, from genes to social integration. Additionally, chapters explore gender differences in age trajectories and changes over time. Special attention is given to the social and cognitive dimensions of healthy longevity.

Key Features:

• Disseminates new scholarly research about a rapidly growing segment of the population-the oldest old
• Offers multidisciplinary and international perspectives about the factors that promote healthy survival and improve quality of life
• Addresses the social and cognitive dimensions of healthy longevity
• Provides important information regarding health care costs for this population
• Includes the research of seasoned and emerging scholars

Table of Contents

Preface
Jean-Marie Robine, Carol Jagger and Eileen Crimmins

Section 1: How healthy are the longest lived?
Chapter 1. The oldest-old: Health in Europe and the United States
Aïda Solé-Auró and Eileen M. Crimmins
Chapter 2. Age Trajectory of High Cognitive Functioning Among the Oldest Old
Mikael Thinggaard, Matt McGue and Kaare Christensen
Chapter 3. Malleability of human ageing: the curious case of old age mortality in Japan
Frouke M. Engelaer, Eugene M.G. Milne, David van Bodegom, Yasuhiko Saito, Rudi G.J. Westendorp and Thomas B.L. Kirkwood
Chapter 4. Quality of health care: approaches and findings from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing
Nicholas Steel, David Melzer and Suzanne Richards
Chapter 5. The semantic network of ageing well
Rocio Fernandez-Ballesteros, Maria-Angeles Molina, Rocio Schettini and Marta Santacreu
Chapter 6. A New Concept of Successful Aging in the Oldest-old. - Development of gerotranscendence and its influence on the psychological well-being -
Yasuyuki Gondo, Takeshi Nakagawa and Yukie Masui

Section 2: What drives healthy longevity?
Chapter 7. Optimizing Human Healthspan and Lifespan: Insights from Okinawa and Hawaii
Bradley J. Willcox, Makoto Suzuki, Timothy A. Donlon, Qimei He, John S. Grove, Kamal H. Masaki and D. Craig Willcox
Chapter 8. Mobility in human aging: A multidisciplinary lifespan conceptual framework
Luigi Ferrucci and Jack M. Guralnik
Chapter 9. Physical and Biological Indicators of Health and Functioning in U.S. Oldest-Old
Jennifer Ailshire and Eileen Crimmins
Chapter 10. Extended Fixed Attribute Dynamics Method and an Illustrative Application in Bio-demographic-genetic Analysis on Longevity
Zeng Yi
Chapter 11. Gene expression biomarkers and longevity
David Melzer, Luke C Pilling, Alexander D Fellows, Alice C Holly, Lorna W Harries and Luigi Ferrucci

Section 3: Are we living longer healthier?
Chapter 12. Understanding the mortality decline at older ages: improved life course or improved present period?
Dorly Deeg, Majogé J.G. van Vliet, Jan W.P.F. Kardaun and Martijn Huisman
Chapter 13. Recent trends in disability-free life expectancy in the French elderly: Twenty years follow-up of the Paquid cohort
Karine Pérès, Arlette Edjolo, Jean-François Dartigues and Pascale Barberger-Gateau
Chapter 14. Trends of functioning and health in nonagenarians - the Vitality 90+ Study
Marja Jylha, Linda Enroth and Tiina Luukkaala
Chapter 15. Trends over time in cognitive function and activities of daily living among Danish centenarians
Karen Andersen-Ranberg
Chapter 16. Sex differences in healthy life expectancy in the Netherlands
Frouke M. Engelaer, David van Bodegom and Rudi G.J. Westendorp

Conclusion
Jean-Marie Robine, Carol Jagger and Eileen Crimmins

Author Bio

Jean-Marie Robine is a Research Director at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research within the CERMES Research group in Paris and the MMDN lab in Montpellier where he heads the research team Biodemography of longevity and vitality. He studies human longevity, with the aim of understanding the relations between health and longevity. Since its creation in 1989, he has been the coordinator of the International Network on Health Expectancy (REVES) which brings together more some 100 researchers worldwide. He is the project leader of the Joint Action European Life and Health Expectancy Information System which provides analysis of disability-free life expectancies in the European Union (Healthy Life Years-HLY). He is co-responsible for the development of the International Database on Longevity (IDL) in association with the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (Rostock) and INED (Paris). He is one of the principal investigators of the Genetic of Healthy Ageing project (GEHA) and the project leader of the healthy longevity project granted by AXA Research Fund: the Five-Country Oldest Old Project (5-COOP).

Carol Jagger, PhD, is the AXA Professor of Epidemiology of Ageing in the Institute for Ageing and Health, Newcastle University. Her research spans demography and epidemiology with a focus on mental and physical functioning in ageing and determinants of healthy active life expectancy, particularly through cohort studies of ageing: the Melton Mowbray studies and currently the MRC Cognitive Function and Ageing Study and the MRC Newcastle 85+ study. She has published widely on healthy life expectancy and its determinants and has provided evidence on this to the her government's Health Committee, the Pensions Commission and the Scottish Finance Committee. Within Europe she co-leads the European Health Expectancy Monitoring Unit, is on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Joint Programming Initiaitive 'More Years, Better Lives' and led the Healthy Ageing and Wellbeing theme of the FUTURAGE project which has created the roadmap for ageing research in Europe for the next 10-15 years. Carol is a Chartered Scientist and a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health.

Eileen Crimmins, PhD, is the AARP Professor of Gerontology at the University of Southern California where she is currently the director of the USC/UCLA Center on Biodemography and Population Health, one of the Demography of Aging Centers supported by the U.S. National Institute on Aging. She is also the Director of a Multidisciplinary Training in Gerontology grant and an NIA sponsored Network on Biological Risk. Dr. Crimmins is a co-investigator of the NIA Sponsored Health and Retirement Study in the U.S. and the Chinese Health and Longitudinal Study. Much of her research has focused on changes over time in health and mortality. Crimmins recently served as co-chair of a Committee for the National Academy of Sciences to address why life expectancy in the U.S. is falling so far behind that of other countries. She has co-edited several books with a focus on international aging, mortality and health expectancy: Determining Health Expectancies; Longer Life and Healthy Aging; Human Longevity, Individual Life Duration, and the Growth of the Oldest-old Population; the Handbook of Adult Mortality, Explaining Diverging Levels of Longevity in High-Income Countries, and International Differences in Mortality at Older Ages: Dimensions and Sources.