|
 Researchers analyzed studies of people 65 and older enrolled in
Medicare, the U.S. health program for the elderly. The studies asked
how often disabilities kept people from fully participating in daily
activities and then followed them over time to see how long they
lived. They looked at data from 1982, 2004 and 2011.
Over that period, the age an average 65-year-old woman could expect
to live to increased by two years, from 82.5 years to 85.5 years,
the analysis found. Men don’t live as long, but they gained more
years – five – expanding their life expectancy at age 65 to a
further 19 years from 14 years.
But women shouldn’t necessarily celebrate getting those extra
birthdays.
After age 65, women consistently spent an estimated 30 percent of
their remaining years with a disability. Men, on the other hand,
started out spending 22 percent of their remaining years after 65
disabled and saw that decrease to 19 percent by the end of the
study.
It’s hard to say exactly why women may experience more years of
disability, but some of this might be due to unequal progress in
treating their health conditions or different shifts in gender
lifestyle habits like smoking and exercise over time, said lead
study author Vicki Freedman, of the Institute for Social Research at
the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
“Older women also have fewer economic resources than men on average
so they may not be as able to accommodate their declines in
functioning when they do occur,” Freedman said by email.
“Whatever the reason, this is an important trend to continue to
monitor as the large Baby Boom cohorts continue to reach old age,”
Freedman added.
Disabilities might make it harder to complete daily activities like
dressing, bathing, cooking, shopping or driving.
Severe disability – when people had trouble with at least three
different activities – declined for both women and men over the
study period, researchers report in the American Journal of Public
Health.
In 1982, 13.2 percent of women and 10.7 percent of men experienced
severe disability after age 65. By 2011, this dropped to about 10
percent of women and 7 percent of men.
[to top of second column] |
One limitation of the study is its reliance on data from just three
individual years, which made it impossible to explore how disability
onset or recovery might influence life expectancy, the authors note.
They also limited the analysis of disability to mobility and
completion of daily activities, which excludes other impairments
that can influence health and quality of life.
It’s possible, though, that the same heartiness that makes women
live longer than men also contributes to their greater propensity
toward disability in their later years, said Dr. James Kirkland,
director of the Robert and Arlene Kogod Center on Aging at the Mayo
Clinic.
“Women are biologically more hearty than men so instead of dying
from a heart attack or something like that they recover, but they
recover disabled,” said Kirkland, who wasn’t involved in the study.
Many women may also assume caretaker roles that leave less time for
recreational, social, and self-fulfilling activities that might help
keep disability at bay, noted Dr. Lili Lustig, a family medicine
specialist with the Cleveland Clinic in Warrensville Heights, Ohio.
At the same time, some women may also lack the financial resources
to stop working as they get older or to pay for services they need,
particularly if they are poor, Lustig, who wasn’t involved in the
study, added by email. They may also struggle to pay for basic needs
like food, medicine and housing.
“Women are not prepared for the golden years,” Lustig said. “The
idea of the idyllic retirement portrayed on TV does not exist.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1R8XwYb American Journal of Public Health,
online March 17, 2016.
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
