The ubiquity and longevity of successful ageing

If you have had any exposure to gerontology, the study of ageing, the chances are that you have come across the concept of successful ageing. Indeed, if you observe any Western ageing society you will come across the term very quickly: in advertising, policy documents and in the media. However, if asked to define the concept, you would most likely proffer a different definition than the next person (even if you are both gerontologists). This is because successful ageing is a construct that has no single widely accepted and applied definition. Depp and Jeste (2006), in their review of 29 successful ageing studies, identified almost as many (28) definitions of successful ageing. Cosco and colleagues (2014) identified 105 operational definitions of successful ageing. This does not mean that the concept is unimportant, or too vague to have exerted an influence on the study of ageing. On the contrary, the fact that diverse definitions abound demonstrates the ‘appetite’ for a summative concept like successful ageing, in the sense of a desire to spell out what it is, and who is living it – in all cases underpinned by a particular understanding of what constitutes ‘success’.

The idea of a ‘recipe’ of successful ageing is old: one of the earliest examples of pointing to a path to a good old age can be found in Cicero's (106–43 BCE) De Senectute(‘on old age’). When his two young friends enquire about the positive and negative aspects of old age, the elder statesman Cato responds that he continues to enjoy intellectual activities; does not miss the physical vigour of his youth; and has adjusted his activities to be manageable. For Cato/Cicero, old age ‘may well be very busy indeed, always in the middle of some activity, or projecting some plan – in continuation, of course, of the interests of earlier years’. However, Cicero was dismissive of advice regarding good old age: ‘Advice in old age is foolish; for what can be more absurd than to increase our provisions for the road the nearer we approach to our journey's end.’ Notions of successful ageing, therefore, have abounded through history, but few recent writers have taken Cicero's reluctant stance on sketching out how to age well.