The onset of old age has been postponed. According to lan Robertson, dean of research at Dublin’s Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, it currently begins at the age of 80.
‘These 30 years – about age 50 to 80, a span considerably longer than adolescence – require a completely new style of life,’ he said recently at the British Association scientific festival. In 1984, Robertson began researching the effects of ageing on the brain. Stroke victims were at an average age of 72 at the time.
‘By 1999, my patients’ average age had risen to nearly 82.’ In just 15 years, I witnessed firsthand how people had aged by around 10 years in many ways.’ He claimed that the human brain was malleable at all ages and that it was shaped by experience, learning, and thinking. At the turn of the twentieth century, ancient Romans had a life expectancy of 22, while Europeans might expect to live for 50 years.
In UK, a 60 year old woman can expect to live normally to the age of 83. What people did once they turned 50 had an impact on how well they preserved their faculties.
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