‘Live Well Die Fast! Squaring the Curve

Couple riding a scooter and laughing

‘Live well. Die fast.’

Sounds like the title of James Bond movie. It’s not. It’s the best result of healthy active successful ageing. ‘Squaring the Curve’ should be everyone’s ambition.

Image a graph. On the horizontal is age starting at birth and on into the deep years. On the vertical is health, at the bottom zero rising to excellent health. Assume the health of the baby is excellent; health zooms straight up from birth. As the child ages, the line may occasionally wobble, fall, and rise again, but essentially, it remains flat, indicating good health, and will continue at this level until about sixty.

There are two lines showing health after sixty. A continuous and a dotted line. The continuous line represents declining health, and the dotted line represents healthy, active, successful ageing.

The continuous after sixty starts a slow downward curve as the years pass the downeard curve may last ten or more years, until the downward curve reaches the horizontal and life is over.

The long downward curve represents ill health. It is probably the result of a chronic disease or chronic disease. The following is what it’s like to live with  one or more chronic diseases, as described by someone who suffers with them: “It’s like having the flu until the day you die. …. hospital becomes your second home. It means doctor appointments will be a definite part of your schedule, indefinitely. Clinical tests become part of the normal routine – having an X-ray taken starts to feel no different from a snap on your camera phone. Having blood drawn from your veins becomes just another task to strike off the list, like getting your groceries done.’ Mighty.com

The interrupted line after sixty continues along on the same trajectory, the occasional wobble but no gradual downward curve. Good health continues into the deep years until there is a sudden downward drop, ‘the squaring of the curve’ and life is over. There is no long period of ill health.

The medical term is ‘compressed morbidity’ or ‘squaring the curve,’ its what everyone wants. Live a long life in good health without illness and die fast. It is worrying to learn that the age when health starts its downward curve is beginning at a younger and younger age.

Increased life expectancy, or life span, is arguably the most impressive achievement of humanity. We are living much longer than our predecessors. In the U.S., life expectancy has increased from roughly 49 to nearly 77 since the start of the 20th century. However, the number of years we are healthy has not kept pace. Health span, years free from disability or disease, and we are active and able to do the things we love, has not kept pace. We may live longer, but we live longer ‘sicker.’

The decline in health as we age is an unexpected, unwelcome consequence of the wonderful success of increased life expectancy. The impact of this on society, the economy and the individual is wholly negative and will be catastrophic if allowed to continue.

Do we really want to accept this way of life when it will probably mean ten or more years in a nursing home or care facility, suffering from one or more chronic diseases, perhaps bedridden, cared for, sick?

The goal of DiscoverAge is not longevity and increased lifespan, which is now very fashionable, the goal is healthy active successful ageing, it is squaring the curve.

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