Additional years provide the chance to pursue new activities such as further education, a new career or a long-neglected passion. They are often the consequence of multiple underlying factors and include frailty, urinary incontinence, falls, delirium and pressureĪ longer life brings with it opportunities, not only for older people and their families, but also for societies as a whole. Older age is also characterized by the emergence of several complex health states commonly called geriatric syndromes. As people age, they are more likely to experience several Common health conditions associated with ageingĬommon conditions in older age include hearing loss, cataracts and refractive errors, back and neck pain and osteoarthritis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, depression and dementia. Such as retirement, relocation to more appropriate housing and the death of friends and partners. Beyond biological changes, ageing is often associated with other life transitions The diversity seen in older age is not random.

These changes are neither linear nor consistent, and they are only loosely associated with a person’s age in years. This leads to a gradual decrease in physical and mental capacity, a growing risk of disease and ultimately death. Ageing explainedĪt the biological level, ageing results from the impact of the accumulation of a wide variety of molecular and cellular damage over time. By 2050, two-thirds of the world’s population over 60 years will live in low- and middle-income countries. While this shift in distribution of a country's population towards older ages – known as population ageing – started in high-income countries (for example in Japan 30% of the population is already over 60 years old), it is now low- and middle-incomeĬountries that are experiencing the greatest change. The number of persons aged 80 years or older is expected to triple between 20 to reach 426 million. By 2050, the world’s population of people aged 60 years and older

At this time the share of the population aged 60 years and over will increase from 1 billion in 2020 to 1.4 billion. Every country in the world is experiencing growth in both the size and the proportion of older persons in theīy 2030, 1 in 6 people in the world will be aged 60 years or over. Today most people can expect to live into their sixties and beyond.

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