By Hailey Andersen
A positive attitude is a primary key to healthy aging, and over the past decades, the overall meaning of aging has changed dramatically according to Dr. Marcia G. Ory, associate vice president for strategic partnerships and initiatives at the Texas A&M Health Science Center. Dr. Ory says keeping a positive outlook on aging will lead to a healthier and happier life.
“Healthy aging is the new normal,” Dr. Ory says. “People are living longer, and as they live longer, people are tending to be healthier.”
Before coming to Texas A&M University, Dr. Ory spent 20 years at the National Institute of Aging outside of Washington, D.C., where she directed a research program for behavioral and social aspects of aging. The emphasis of the program was to try and understand the older population and what changes would make a positive impact in their lives.
“Since I’ve been at Texas A&M, what I realized is that we know a lot about older people,” she says. “We know a lot about what will make older people healthier, but the issue is how to do what we know works.”
In the university-wide Board of Regents Center for Population Health and Aging, the goal is to understand how to put science and research into a practice that will make a difference in the lives of older people. According to Dr. Ory and her colleagues, aging is a life-course phenomenon where aging processes begin at birth and continue until death.
Fostering a healthy aging process begins with a positive attitude, says Dr. Ory. Negative stereotypes about older adults have not gone away, and that is something she is determined to try and change.
“Research says if you have a negative image of aging, you actually are going to be less healthy and you’re going to die sooner,” she says. “Those negative stereotypes can kill you; they are actually health hazards. Just like smoking!”
Dr. Ory says aging is complex — it is related to people’s genes, behaviors, social integration, and environment. Given all the factors that lead to healthy aging, it’s most important to make sure everyone (older adults, their families, health care providers, etc.) are involved in promoting healthy aging, according to Dr. Ory. She also says she believes implementing more images of older people being active will help spread positivity about aging and reduce negative stereotypes.
The fact of the matter is, it is never too late to be healthy. Dr. Ory says physical activity is one of the best things you can do for your health, and you can do it at any age. “That’s really the message: it’s never too late,” she says. “Adhere to all of those healthy recommendations your whole life and that will make you healthier in old age.”
The idea of getting the older population engaged in more physical activities is a task Dr. Ory and the rest of her colleagues are trying to accomplish by using lifestyle programs like Texercise Select and the Chronic Disease Self Management Education program.
Texercise Select is a program that promotes physical activity and nutrition. Dr. Ory says Texercise Select shows that older people in these physical activity programs want to be there, and don’t want to be couch potatoes. She says she believes as people increase their physical activity, they will improve their mobility, eating, and overall quality of life.
The Chronic Disease Self Management Education program works on understanding how to manage chronic conditions, improve patient communication with doctors, and prevent unneeded costly health care like hospitalizations.
The next step towards healthy aging is figuring out how to get health care providers to refer people to these programs and how to get older people to be aware and ask for these programs, according to Dr. Ory. Her goal is to understand how to get these programs into what she calls aging service settings like senior centers. She says she believes that understanding the linkage between community programs and clinical programs is just another step to get closer to a healthy aging process.
“Don’t expect aging to be everything negative,” says Dr. Ory. “Expect aging to be the new normal and expect healthy aging to be [part of] that normal.”
