Investigating Discontinuity of Age Relations in Cognitive Functioning, General Health Status, Activity Participation, and Life Satisfaction between Young-Old and Old-Old Age

Ihle, Andreas; Jopp, Daniela S.; Oris, Michel; Fagot, Delphine; Kliegel, Matthias · 2016 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.3390/ijerph13111092

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Summary

This study investigates whether aging is a continuous, gradual process or if there is a qualitative discontinuity between "young-old" and "old-old" age groups. The authors address the lack of empirical criteria for defining the boundary between these stages, noting that previous research often relies on arbitrary age cutoffs. The central research questions were whether age relations in cognitive functioning, health, activity participation, and life satisfaction show discontinuity, at what approximate age this occurs, and whether the discontinuity is universal or domain-specific. The researchers analyzed data from the Vivre-Leben-Vivere survey, a large population-based sample of 3,080 Swiss adults aged 65–101. They assessed four domains: processing speed (Trail Making Test A), verbal abilities (Mill Hill Vocabulary Scale), general health status (self-rated scale), activity participation (count of 18 leisure activities), and life satisfaction (Satisfaction with Life Scale). Statistical analyses compared "gradual models" (linear and quadratic age terms) against "stage models" that split participants into young-old and old-old groups. The authors iteratively varied the age cutoff to identify the point that maximized variance explanation, testing if the stage model significantly outperformed the gradual model. The results indicated very small but significant indications of discontinuity in all domains, though the specific age thresholds varied. For processing speed, verbal abilities, general health status, and life satisfaction, the discontinuity appeared at the end of the eighties (specifically ages 87–90). In contrast, activity participation showed a discontinuity earlier, at the beginning of the eighties (age 80). In the stage models, old-old adults generally exhibited lower scores than young-old adults, and the rate of decline (age gradient) was significantly steeper in the old-old group for processing speed and activity participation. For verbal abilities and health, the primary difference was in mean levels rather than the rate of change. The study concludes that models conceptualizing aging as a purely gradual development may be insufficient to capture the qualitative differences between young-old and old-old age. The findings suggest that the transition to old-old age is not a simple continuation of young-old age but involves distinct shifts in functioning. Importantly, the age at which this discontinuity occurs is domain-specific rather than universal, occurring earlier for activity participation than for cognitive or health metrics. These results provide empirical criteria for stratifying age groups in future gerontological research, suggesting cutoffs around age 80 for activity and late 80s for other domains.

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