Rosanne M. Leipzig is a geriatrician and author of the book, Honest Aging: An Insider’s Guide to the Second Half of Life. An earlier post Unlocking the Secrets to Aging Well pointed to a podcast. The following is an excerpt from an article by Judith Graham at KFF Health News titled Let’s Have an Honest Conversation About What to Expect as You Age https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/navigating-aging-expectation-adjustment-change/. Graham interviewed Dr. Leipzig for the story.

Can the stages of aging be broken down, roughly, by decade? No, said Leipzig, noting that people in their 60s and 70s vary significantly in health and functioning. Typically, predictable changes associated with aging “start to happen much more between the ages of 75 and 85,” she told me. Here are a few of the age-related issues she highlights in her book:

• Older adults often present with different symptoms when they become ill. For instance, a senior having a heart attack may be short of breath or confused, rather than report chest pain. Similarly, an older person with pneumonia may fall or have little appetite instead of having a fever and cough.
• Older adults react differently to medications. Because of changes in body composition and liver, kidney, and gut function, older adults are more sensitive to medications than younger people and often need lower doses. This includes medications that someone may have taken for years. It also applies to alcohol.
• Older adults have reduced energy reserves. With advancing age, hearts become less efficient, lungs transfer less oxygen to the blood, more protein is needed for muscle synthesis, and muscle mass and strength decrease. The result: Older people generate less energy even as they need more energy to perform everyday tasks.
• Hunger and thirst decline. People’s senses of taste and smell diminish, lessening food’s appeal. Loss of appetite becomes more common, and seniors tend to feel full after eating less food. The risk of dehydration increases.
• Cognition slows. Older adults process information more slowly and work harder to learn new information. Multitasking becomes more difficult, and reaction times grow slower. Problems finding words, especially nouns, are typical. Cognitive changes related to medications and illness are more frequent.
• The musculoskeletal system is less flexible. Spines shorten as the discs that separate the vertebrae become harder and more compressed; older adults typically lose 1 to 3 inches in height as this happens. Balance is compromised because of changes in the inner ear, the brain, and the vestibular system (a complex system that regulates balance and a person’s sense of orientation in space). Muscles weaken in the legs, hips, and buttocks, and range of motion in joints contracts. Tendons and ligaments aren’t as strong, and falls and fractures are more frequent as bones become more brittle.
• Eyesight and hearing change. Older adults need much more light to read than younger people. It’s harder for them to see the outlines of objects or distinguish between similar colors as color and contrast perception diminishes. With changes to the cornea, lens, and fluid within the eye, it takes longer to adjust to sunlight as well as darkness.
• Because of accumulated damage to hair cells in the inner ear, it’s harder to hear, especially at high frequencies. It’s also harder to understand speech that’s rapid and loaded with information or that occurs in noisy environments.
• Sleep becomes fragmented. It takes longer for older adults to fall asleep, and they sleep more lightly, awakening more in the night.

This is by no means a complete list of physiological changes that occur as we grow older.

Ouch.