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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Fighting Age With Confidence, Willpower ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Sheer feistiness may help the very old overcome the adversities of physical decline, experts say. Strong wills may "close the gap between personal capability and environmental demands," concludes a joint Swedish-American study of Swedish elderly. The researchers conclude that the more determined elderly use a strong sense of personal 'mastery' to "not 'allow' disease to spiral into disability." The study, led by researchers at Pennsylvania State University in University Park, Pennsylvania, appears in the latest issue of the Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences. The researchers conducted extensive interviews in 1987-1988 with 324 Swedish elderly aged 84 to 90 years. Follow-up interviews were conducted in 1990 and 1992. A total of 147 individuals were still alive by the second follow-up interview. At each session, interviewees were questioned as to their ability to carry out the daily tasks of life (eating, washing, dressing, etc.), their sense of their own health, and their sense of mastery over their lives. Routine health examinations were also completed. The investigators discovered three factors common in those elderly who managed to maintain mobility and daily functioning ability over the course of the study: independent living, a subjective belief in their own good health, and a sense of 'mastery'. The three may be interlinked. Although some physical decline is inevitable with age, a personal determination to remain independent "may enable a person to compensate for increasing frailty," speculates study co-author Dr. Elia Femia. Living independently in one's own home or apartment may reinforce that sense of independence, the authors say. Nursing homes, on the other hand, may encourage "people to give up control over some areas of their lives, inadvertently promoting decline," they say. However, the study authors point out that the psyche, unlike the physical body, does not necessarily decline with age. In fact, they say one's wits "often exhibit surprising stability or even gains in functioning over time." But psychological assertiveness in the face of increasing frailty does have its limits. "Eventually," Femia says, "there may come a time when the physical problems just can't be compensated for (any more)." The study authors agree that there is no "single recipe for successful aging." But they say good old-fashioned feistiness could "play an important role in the maintenance or improvement of performance." SOURCE: Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences (November, 1997) 1997, Reuters Health eLine] <http://www.medscape.com/reuters/fri/t1106-8f.html> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- janet [log in to unmask]