Concept of successful ageing among the community-dwelling oldest old in Japan

Abstract

AIM: In Japan, increasing human longevity has forced society to rethink the notion of what constitutes 'successful ageing'. This study attempts to advocate a new concept of successful ageing that involves complete acceptance of the ageing process. METHOD: Research was based on semi-structured interviews with 15 community dwelling oldest-old (aged 85 years and above) participants. The analysis was completed using a grounded theory approach. FINDINGS: Successful ageing for the oldest old was grouped into six categories. Within these categories, we discovered the structure of successful ageing, which synthesises ideas from the adaptation process with those of physical and cognitive decreased function as well as spirituality. CONCLUSION: The oldest old in Japan work to arrive at a conclusion with their lives, all the while coping with the drawbacks of ageing, such as declining physical and cognitive functions. This resilient and flexible way of life makes their form of ageing an equally 'successful' one.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 15 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.