Mental Functioning Deteriorates As We Grow Older

Disease prevention is the key to better health over longer life spans. It was related to changing demographics in America’s senior population and the burgeoning incidence of obesity. The changing ethnic composition of the population now reaching 60 years of age is another contributing factor. Powerful preventive measures are known and have been very well studied. They primarily consist of modifying unhealthy lifestyle and diet habits. More on that in a moment. Emanuel continues by referencing mental disabilities that increase with age and muscle. Emanuel believes the prospect of that changing in the next few decades is not good and indicates that mental deterioration is a simple function of years. Even if we aren’t demented, our mental functioning deteriorates as we grow older. Our research points consistently to unhealthy behavior over time as the greater problem. Being a rare genetic outlier is not the only reason someone may have greatly increased odds of living a long and far healthier life. Healthy behaviors dramatically change individual prospects.

Burning Bridges

That was just part of the good news. Emanuel believes that by age 75, creativity, originality, and productivity are pretty much gone for the vast majority of us. We are subject to who we have been. It is difficult, if not impossible, to generate new, creative thoughts. This may be the status quo, but it is a consequence of a growing epidemic of bad habits, unhealthy diets, and sedentary lifestyles. His purpose in sharing his views on old age is to help us think about how we want to live as we grow older. Please pass the hemlock. He is saying that he hopes to die at 75 and advocates this as a horizon beyond which human life is not worth actively pursuing. Emanuel seems not to have read the medical research regarding an alternative to rotting away in place as he imagines. Americans seem to be obsessed with exercising, doing mental puzzles, consuming various juice and protein concoctions . Emanuel that his still vigorous, joyful life is something others should not aspire to because doing so is misguided and potentially destructive. We used to wonder, and we are sure you are now wondering, how can it be that there is a problem seriously affecting hundreds of millions of people that is so little known and understood outside a small cadre of medical scientists? How has it come to pass that a leading medical bioethicist has concluded that it is best to plan to let go of life after the age of 75? That there is no alternative to long, slow mental and physical deterioration, so we might as well give up, die quickly of pneumonia when it shows up to take us by forgoing antibiotics, and get it all over with? Roger Fielding, one of the world’s leading experts on sarcopenia whom we consulted, why doctors know little about how to prevent sarcopenia.

Blame It On The Sun

Fielding states, Older patients need to know the problem they have getting up the stairs is because of loss of muscle, he said. Mobility can be restored to a great many older adults that inactivity has largely immobilized. There is progress and a growing effort to tackle this medical condition that to date has largely flown under the radar. Fielding believes that prevention is key. Since the condition may advance gradually over the years, most do not realize they are suffering from dangerous and unnecessary muscle wasting until they are overtaken with debilitating weakness. Changing this trend is key to everyone’s health and welfare, and the earlier in life the good habits of maintaining muscle health are established, the better. Doctors must first learn themselves, and then teach patients, to forget mistaken past conventional wisdom like take it easy as key to enjoying life as they age. Everyone needs to know that most of the severe health impacts of aging are not due to aging at all, but to inactivity. Even though strength training keeps people physically sound and out of nursing homes, few older people do much of it. We are currently killing our elders with kindness. We worry that perhaps it would be better if they didn’t go up and down stairs at their age, even if they seem to be managing them without a problem. We fear that if they go for a walk alone they might not immediately get help if something happens.

A Head Full Of Dreams

To placate our own concerns, we encourage them to withdraw too soon from the very activities of daily life that are crucial for their continued wellbeing. Saunders suggests that we picture the healthiest senior citizen that we know and ask ourselves a question. Does he spend his day sitting down or walking, skiing, or dancing? In a week, his metabolism would collapse and fats would increase. It is inactivity, not aging, that drives the problems of aging. Inactivity begets more inactivity. This in turn reduces fitness and makes being active even more difficult so that activity levels decrease further. And on and on, as less activity drives more weakness, which drives less fitness in a vicious, declining spiral! The sad end is that even the most successful and accomplished men and women finish their lives in this state of decline. To me, old age seems to be the art of keeping going. Speed and direction are not important. I want only to be at peace and in normal discomfort. Yes, the rearview mirror is where I get the most pleasure. There I can run and jump and shag high fly balls in the many sunny baseball fields of my youth. Fred knows it does not have to be that way. But, without the correct advice from our medical professionals, this will continue to be an accurate description of the downward spiral of weakness and inactivity. Loss of muscle function is not some normal consequence of aging. Changing the trend is key to everyone’s health and welfare, and the earlier in life the good habits of maintaining muscle health are established, the better. It reduces the risk of disease .