SEXAGENARIAN
BECOMING AN AGED UNIT

I am not embarrassed to admit that I am a sexagenarian. To those who don't recognize the word sexagenarian, please know that it has nothing to do with sexual behavior. It simply means that I am between 60 and 69 years of age.

And if the truth be told, I recently had my 65th birthday.My initial research revealed that at age 65 I had joined nearly thirty-eight million other Americans who are 65 and older.   I was now part of the fastest-growing population segment in the United States. Between 2008 and 2030, this segment is projected to grow by 81% (to more than 70 million), while the remaining adult groupings will grow by an average of only 7%.

The next step was to find an unambiguous definition for the term senior citizen. In the first dictionary I consulted, a senior citizen was defined as a person who is of relatively advanced age, especially a person at or over the age of retirement. Another dictionary described senior citizen as someone of relatively advanced age, generally age 65 or older. A third defined a senior citizen as an elderly person, especially one who is retired and living on a pension. The fourth defined senior citizen to be an elderly or aged person, especially one who is retired or whose principal source of support is a pension or Social Security benefits.

Considering that three of the four different definitions of senior citizen contained the word retired, I checked with the organization that I thought could be the ultimate arbiter of such matters – AARP (the American Association of Retired Persons). Nowhere could I find an AARP definition for senior citizen. With frustration beginning to set in, I looked to the U.S. Administration on Aging to satisfy my need to know. But once again, no success. Finally, I turned to the authority of last resort, the Social Security Administration (SSA). As one may expect, my search for an unambiguous definition of senior citizen ended in failure. I did, however, uncover what may be the next best thing: the SSA definition of an aged unit - either a married couple living together with the husband or wife aged 65 or older, or a person 65 or older who does not live with a spouse.

I found none of the senior citizen definitions to be particularly appealing, but they didn't arouse any negative feelings. This benign response disappeared when I checked the thesaurus for synonyms of the words senior citizen. I was put off to find that I could be described as a graybeard, a geezer, an old-timer, an oldster, a golden-ager and, perhaps most despicably, an ancient.

Choosing not to dwell on the pejorative nomenclature too often associated with a person my age, I continued my research into what it meant to be a senior citizen. If you are a person of relatively advanced age, a self-described senior citizen, an old-timer, or even an aged unit, here is some information that my search uncovered that you may find interesting:

· Of the 37.5 million Americans age 65 and over, 21.8 million are women, 15.7 million are men. Average life expectancy for males beyond 65 years of age is 17.1 years, for women, 20 years. Among persons 85 years of age and older, there are 4 men for every 10 women.

· According to a 2002 study at Johns Hopkins University, 20 percent of those 65 and older have at least five chronic health conditions. The most frequently reported are:

· High blood pressure (hypertension) is reported in 60 percent of seniors. Hypertension is the most common risk factor for congestive heart failure disease. Both high systolic and diastolic blood pressures are risk factors for coronary artery disease.

· Hearing loss is endemic among seniors. Presbycusis, literally "old age hearing," is a multi-dimensional auditory disorder that affects an estimated 60 percent of persons over age 65. Auditory deficits in older adults are complex. They can cause perceptual distortions, cognitive dysfunction, inappropriate social behaviors, and many physiological and neurological aberrations. In instances of miss-diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease, it is more often than not a hearing loss masquerading as cognitive decline.

For most of us, the development of hearing loss will be a painless, gradual process that occurs over a period of years, if not decades. By the time we seek help, hearing loss will have affected every aspect of our work, social, and family life.

To cope with diminished hearing, we will learn to manipulate our environment (e.g., moving closer to the sound source, turning up the volume on the TV, etc.) and/or exert some form of behavior modification on ourselves as well as others, e.g., closely watching the face of the speaker, asking "what?" or "could you please speak more clearly?" At some point, either through intrinsic motivation and/or the encouragement of others, the hearing impaired forego vanity concerns and realize that a hearing aid is the preferred method of resolving the problems and limitations of hearing loss.

· Osteoporosis (literally "porous bones") is an insidious condition, often referred to as the "silent disease," that results in a reduction in bone density due to a depletion of calcium and bone protein. It causes bones to become weak and brittle — so brittle that even mild stresses like bending over, lifting a vacuum cleaner or coughing can cause a fracture.

As many as half of all women and a quarter of men older than 50 will break a bone due to osteoporosis. Each year 700,000 Americans experience compression fractures of the spine due to a reduction in bone density. In addition, 300,000 Americans will suffer a hip fracture related to osteoporosis. Hospitalizations for osteoporotic compression fractures among seniors outnumber those due to MI (myocardial infarction), breast cancer or prostate cancer.

· Diabetes is found in one-in-six seniors. These individuals are at higher risk for many seriously debilitating complications including stroke, heart disease, blindness, and loss of limbs due to poor circulation. Diabetes is the fifth most common cause of death among seniors.

· Arthritis (literally "inflamation of a joint") affects hips, hands, knees, low back and neck. Of the many variants of arthritis, osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common, afflicting more than 27 million Americans. After age 50, OA affects more women than men.

· As we age, some of us will become known as geriatrics. It should be no surprise that there is no clear definition of when or how a person becomes a geriatric. Usually the term is assigned to "frail" seniors who suffer from such conditions as arteriosclerosis, immobility, instability, incontinence, and impaired intellect/memory. Geriatric health issues may also include delirium, gastrointestinal disturbances, chronic pain, obesity, impaired vision and hearing loss.

Physicians who specialize in the treatment of geriatrics are known as geriatricians. Given that we undergoing a phenomenon sometimes referred to as the "graying of America," one might think that geriatricians represent, or will represent, a sizeable proportion of the physician population. This, however, is not the case. Geriatricians are in desperately short supply. As recently as 2005, only nine of the 145 medical schools in the U.S. had departments of geriatrics. Poor pay and the de-emphasis on high-tech medicine, exemplified by the geriatrician's purported credo that "less is more," dissuade the vast majority of medical students from pursuing an interest in geriatrics.

Conclusion:

The search for information regarding the term senior citizen highlighted the fact that there is no set age for when someone becomes a senior citizen. Considering the various definitions that were found, I think I prefer the term "aged unit." At least this definition is based only on age. It made no judgmental descriptions, such as someone of "relatively advanced age," nor did it qualify me according to employment status or source of income. I know that many of you will not agree with my preference for the aged unit definition. You probably will agree, however, that the senior citizen health facts are sobering, if not uncomfortable. Now if I could only get people to stop referring to me as an "old fart"...

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