Hierarchy of Functional Aging

If you’ve been following us for awhile then you know that we are Functional Aging Specialists and that we work with an aging (50+) population of men/women who want to live active healthy lives into their 80’s, 90’s and some of us may be looking at 100 yrs old in our rear view mirror!

We can all agree that everyone goes through a similar cycle of growth in early life and then we all peak somewhere in our 30’s.

After 30 it is a rather slow and steady decline as we get older.

However, not everyone ages at the same rate.  In fact we see huge differences in how people age so that by the time we get to our 50’s and 60’s there is a huge range of functional abilities.

Some are headed down a path to disease, disability and early death.  They will likely need to be cared for during the last 5-10 years of their life.

Others though are on a path that will keep them healthy and functional for as long as possible.  These people will one day die as we all will.  But they will be able to continue doing all or most of the things they want to do until very close to the end of their life.  Maybe they are sick for a week or two before they pass.  Maybe they just go to sleep one night and don’t wake up.

This what we call Compression of Disability – dramatically shortening the time at the end of life where we are sick and need care.

So we ask, “Where are you on this Hierarchy of Functional Aging chart?”

Because people age so differently we recognize that older adults fall into a broad range of functional categories that isn’t really connected to their chronological age.

There are 80 year old men/women competing in athletic events, playing sports and trekking the world.

And there are 60 year olds that struggle with activities of daily living.

Chronological age is not the issue.

Functional age is.

As Functional Aging Specialists we are experts at meeting where YOU are in your ability to function. And, in most cases, we can do this in small groups of 4-8 people so it’s affordable and still personal training.

Don’t even think about hiring us! 

​Did she really say that? Yes; unless your condition is poor to fair and your motivation is nearly a 10 (on a scale of 1 to 10) with 10 being VERY motivated. We take seriously what we do and your mind set makes all the difference!

Stay tuned as I have a lot more to say about mind set over the upcoming weeks. Hey, I love you even if I don’t really know you yet ’cause aging is not for wimps!