What Will It Take for You to Age Successfully?

When you think about the aging process, what images first pop into your head? Do you envision decline and loss of functioning along with a host of health problems? Or do you imagine the "Betty White's," who not only maintain their abilities but even improve? Clearly, thinking of aging as equal to loss and decline can be frightening when you think about yourself getting older. So if you’d like to be one of the seemingly lucky who rise above these downward changes, what can you do?

As you contemplate these questions and imagine people (or even yourself) as aging, consider what factors would help propel you to the positive end of the aging continuum. Indeed, these questions also inform researchers trying to understand aging in terms of gains rather than losses. In 1997, based on a large national study sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation, Columbia University’s John Rowe and University of Michigan’s (now deceased) Robert Kahn introduced a concept that would produce a seismic shift in both academic circles and the popular press in how aging could be viewed.

Published first as a journal article in a specialized publication, and later in a popular book, Rowe and Kahn’s model of “successful aging” suggested that it was possible for older adults not only to achieve a plateau in their functioning, but even an improvement. Along with the synonymous idea of “optimal aging,” successful aging became the cornerstone of a new movement.

Successful Aging’s First Approximation and Its Problems

Using a three-pronged conceptualization, Rowe and Kahn defined successful aging (SA) as a combination of “absence” of chronic disease, high physical and cognitive functioning, and sustained engagement in productive social activities.

Right away, something might strike you as amiss about this definition. Do you have to have, literally, no chronic diseases to age successfully? Not even hypertension, the most common health condition affecting older adults in the U.S.? That knocks out about half the potential successful agers in America. Second, what is “high” physical or cognitive functioning? Do you have to be able to run a marathon in your 80s or have a perfect memory? Finally, what if older people enjoy some periods of quiet and relaxation rather than being on the go 24-7?

Now that you’ve thought about both the original concept and its problems, you might be ready to move on to something that might be more realistic. Indeed, in the most recent examination of SA and its predictors, University of Cologne’s Marina Plugge (2021) asked “How long can this ‘successfulness’ be preserved and which prerequisites are necessary for it? And should success be measured based on objective criteria only?”

Another Look at Successful Aging Takes Hold

Plugge isn’t the first academic researcher to question the Rowe-Kahn SA definition but she had at her disposal a uniquely composed sample to study whose data could help address these questions. The 1,863 Germans 80 years and older included not only community residents, but individuals residing in nursing homes, a population she notes is under-studied. Given that people living in nursing homes face not only the challenges of chronic disease but also restrictions in their ability to sustain that “productive engagement” in the outside world, if SA’s could be found in this group of older adults, then this would add further weight to the Rowe-Kahn critique.

The idea that SA can occur even in challenging environments forms the basis of what’s known as the Challenges and Potentials Model (CHAPO), which the German researcher proposes can help provide insight into “successful life conduct.” Plugge notes that this approach has the advantage of looking at quality of life “both holistically and subjectively.” In other words, there has to be room in a SA definition of older adults who “appreciate their life,” finding it “fulfilling for the individual but also appreciated by others.”

You might be able to resonate with this idea if you think of an older relative, friend, or even yourself who experiences mobility challenges due to the chronic disease of arthritis or has the occasional memory problem now and then. Maybe this person is able to retain their optimism even on days when there are more than the usual creaks and groans. Such an individual would fit perfectly into the CHAPO-based model.

Turning next to the influence of social context; namely health and economic inequities, Plugge proposes that SA takes place within a particular set of environmental constraints. When you conjure up your image of a SA’er, think about how it’s possible for the person to retain their optimism even in the face of rising prices and perhaps less than ideal living conditions.

Optimism Essential Reads

Are You a Realistic, Cruel, or Tragic Optimist?

Is Positive Thinking a Mistake?

Testing the New View of Successful Aging

The majority of Plugge’s sample of “fourth age” older adults was aged 80-84 (39%), but there was a sizable distribution of individuals 85-89 (34%) and 90 and older (27%). Half identified as male, and they were nearly equally split between married and widowed. They were also reasonably well split by educational status, and a large proportion either were in nursing homes (11%) or receiving some degree of care (36%).

Tested in a computer-based individual interview lasting about 1.5 hours, these German elders provided ratings of their overall life satisfaction, views of “positive and negative” aging experiences, emotional sense of well-being, and their “valuation of life.” For that last measure, consider how you would rate yourself on such items as “finding current value of life useful,” “strong will to live,” “making the best of life,” and “achieving self-imposed goals.” As you can see, then, these measures indeed capture a holistic approach, focused on the individual’s subjective experiences.

The key question that Plugge addressed wasn’t just how people felt about themselves, but also whether these subjective ratings would produce different estimates than the objective Rowe-Kahn SA criteria. Breaking these into five separate ratings, Plugge rated the individuals in her sample onthe absence of any of eight chronic diseases, 14 abilities to function in everyday life, a screening measure of mild cognitive impairment, frequency of social activities, and engaging in paid employment or being a member of an association.

Turning to the findings, you might (or not) be astonished by the discrepancy between objective and subjective SA criteria. Only 11% of the individuals who met the objective criteria fit the subjective SA criteria, meaning that they lacked that sense of inner fulfillment despite their excellent health and other qualities. The findings also showed that one-third met four out of the five objective criteria, with 9% achieving all five, also a very small percent.

By contrast, a whopping 65% met the subjective criteria for SA. As Plugge concluded, the subjective ratings showed a “remarkable discrepancy compared to objective criteria." In other words, what looks like successful aging from the inside may not look that way from the outside.

To sum up, the German findings can provide an important set of checks and balances within the field to what was an overly restrictive definition of successful aging. If the idea of successful aging was completely new to you as a potential development late in life, expansion to this more holistic, subjective view should help give you inspiration as you seek fulfillment in your own life, whatever your age.