Assessing the Success of Successful Aging

The final stage of life ends, for each of us, with death. Put differently, in the end, our bodies are certain to fail. This, like taxes, is among the very few certainties of life. Despite this certainty, we increasingly (and exclusively) apply the yardstick of “success” to life's final chapter. No one speaks of “successful infancy” or the harder to imagine “successful adolescence.” There is something unexpected, almost oxymoronic, about the notion of successful aging. Perhaps it is this very contradictory quality that attracts us, for it allows us to envision an old age that is positive, productive, and hopeful.

The concept of successful aging has some visceral, hard-to-put-your-finger-on appeal. However, the more you reach out and try to touch it, the more vaporous it becomes. What exactly do we mean by successful aging? How does this concept advance the challenging work of improving the lives of older adults? What does the concept mean for clinical practice? I briefly address these three questions, while scanning the provocative and far-ranging papers contained in the supplement to this issue of Annals. These papers were produced for, and presented at, the Eighth Biennial Regenstrief Conference, “Determinants of Successful Aging: Developing an Integrated Research Agenda for the 21st Century.” Against the backdrop of these questions, it …