"Inside every older person is a younger person -- wondering what the hell happened."

~ Cora Harvey Armstrong

Normal Aging

As your body ages, you can expect gradual changes, at your body's own pace. How your body ages depends in part on your family (genetic) patterns of aging. But your lifestyle choices have a more powerful impact on how well your body ages. Fortunately, you can control your lifestyle choices.
The following are normal signs of aging. Some of these changes may apply to you. Others may not. A healthy lifestyle may slow many of these effects of aging.

Skin. With age, the skin becomes less elastic and more lined and wrinkled. Fingernail growth also slows. The oil glands gradually produce less oil, making the skin drier than before.
Hair. It's normal for hair to gradually thin on the scalp, pubic area, and armpits. As hair pigment cells decline in number, gray hair growth increases.

Height. By age 80, it's common to have lost as much as 2 in. (5.1 cm) in height. This is often related to normal changes in posture and compression of joints, spinal bones, and spinal discs.
Hearing. Over time, changes in the ear make high-frequency sounds harder to hear and changes in tone and speech less clear. These changes tend to accelerate after age 55.

Vision. Most people in their 40s develop a need for reading glasses as the lens becomes less flexible. It's also normal for night vision and visual sharpness to decline, while glare increasingly interferes with clear vision in the later years.
Bones. Throughout adulthood, bones gradually lose some of their mineral content, becoming less dense and strong. In women, bone loss increases after menopause.

Metabolism and body composition. Over time, the body typically needs less energy, and your metabolism slows. Hormone changes in the aging body result in a shift to more body fat and less muscle mass. When your muscle mass is reduced, your metabolism slows down.

Brain and nervous system. Starting in the third decade of life, the brain's weight, the size of its nerve network, and its blood flow decrease. But the brain adapts to these changes, growing new patterns of nerve endings. Memory changes are a normal part of the aging process—it's common to have less recall of recent memories and to be slower remembering names and details.

Heart and blood circulation. The heart naturally becomes less efficient as it ages, and your heart has to work a little harder during activity than it did in the past. This makes the heart muscle a little larger. You'll notice a gradual decline in your energy or endurance from one decade to the next.

Lungs. In inactive people, the lungs become less efficient over time, supplying the body with less oxygen.

Kidneys. With advancing age, the kidneys decline in size and function. They don't clear wastes and some medicines from the blood as quickly and don't help the body handle dehydration as well as in the past. Urinary incontinence. Age related changes in the urinary system, decreased mobility, and some medicine side-effects, can all lead to urinary incontinence. This does not have to be part of normal aging, so talk to your doctor if urinary incontinence is affecting you.

By Caroline Rea RN, BS, MS
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