Successful/Productive Aging, Responsibility, and Reflection

Abstract

Successful aging is a central piece of the “new gerontology,” an effort by scholars and others to view aging in a fresh, positive light (Holstein and Minkler 2003; Moody 2005). This new approach must be viewed within its historical and contradictory cultural context (Moody 2002). In the twentieth century, improvements to the public health and social welfare infrastructures, coupled with advances in biomedicine, engendered shifts in the goals of modern medicine. With the increase in life expectancy, chronic health conditions supplanted acute health conditions as the primary threats to health and well-being. To accommodate this shift, healthcare efforts in the twenty-first century were increasingly targeted toward managing quality of life through long-term disease management. The increased prevalence of chronic conditions and the aging of the population are seen as creating tremendous pressure on the healthcare system and society. Indeed, many argue that our social welfare and healthcare infrastructures are not equipped to efficiently handle the burdens of chronic diseases and an aging population (Kovner and Knickman 2011). Recent research suggests that elders consume a relatively large share of healthcare, although they comprise only 13 % of the population in the United States (Stanton 2006). This is in part because they are victim to multiple chronic conditions that are expensive to treat and also because of the medicalization of normal aging processes (Illich 2000; Stanton 2006). Accordingly, curbing healthcare costs of elders is a key focus in the battle for efficient healthcare service delivery.