Is 90 the New 85?

By Bill Santamour	December 05, 2011
Report provides valuable insights on Americas "oldest old."

I write a lot about our aging population and the impact on health care but, even so, I was brought up short when the National Institute of Aging recommended in November that the designation ?oldest old? be changed from 85 years of age to 90.

That?s because the number of Americans 90 and older is growing at a breathtaking pace. In 1980, 720,000 people in the United States were 90 and older. In 2010, that number had increased to 1.9 million. And by 2050, it could reach 9 million, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report commissioned by the NIA.

As NIA Director Richard J. Hodes, M.D., pointed out in a press release about the report, "The information on a variety of factors ? income, health status, disabilities and living arrangements ? will be particularly useful to researchers, planners and policymakers."

Among the insights found in the report:

"The majority of the 90-plus population are widowed white women who live alone or in a nursing home. Most of them are high school graduates. Social Security provides almost half of their personal income, and almost all of them have health insurance coverage through Medicare and/or Medicaid. The vast majority say they have one or more types of disability.

"An average person who has lived to 90 years of age has a life expectancy today of 4.6 more years (versus 3.2 years in 1929?1931), while those who pass the century mark are projected to live another 2.3 years.

"Nearly 85 percent of those 90 years and older reported having one or more limitations in physical function. Some 66 percent had difficulty in mobility-related activities such as walking or climbing stairs.

"An older person?s likelihood of living in a nursing home increases sharply with age. About 1 percent of what are called the young elderly (ages 65?69) live in a nursing home. The proportion rises to 3 percent for ages 75?79, 11.2 percent for ages 85?89, 19.8 percent at ages 90?94, 31.0 percent at ages 95?99 and up to 38.2 percent among centenarians.

"More than 74 percent of the population ages 90 and older in 2006?2008 were women.

"The annual median income for people 90 and older is $14,760. Social Security represents 47.9 percent of total personal income.

"Previous seminal work on demography designated age 85 as the cutoff for what we termed the oldest old," said Richard Suzman, director of NIA?s Division of Behavioral and Social Research in the same release. "With a rapidly growing percentage of the older population projected to be 90 and above in 2050, this report provides data for the consideration of moving that yardstick up to 90. Can 90 be the new 85?"

On another topic, please note that my colleague Haydn Bush is attending the Institute for Healthcare Improvement?s 23rd Annual National Forum in Orlando and will be blogging about it in this space tomorrow through Thursday. I?ve attended the forum in the past, and it?s really one of the best health care meetings of the year, with more than 6,000 professionals from around the world getting together to discuss the latest breakthroughs for boosting quality of care and to share best practices. One of the many highlights this year will be a keynote by actor Michael J. Fox on what?s new in the fight against Parkinson?s disease.

Haydn also will be tweeting from the meeting over the next three days. You can follow him at http://www.twitter.com/haydnbush.

Bill Santamour is managing editor of Hospitals & Health Networks.

The opinions expressed by authors do not necessarily reflect the policy of Health Forum Inc. or the American Hospital Association.

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