‘Just stay interested in life’
Writer Sarah Catherall finds out that’s just one of the longevity secrets of centenarians as her gran turns 100 this week.
There are few signs that Ethel Robinson is 100 years old, and those who meet her are usually surprised she is in her 11th decade.
Home is Wellington’s Rita Angus Retirement Village, where the former primary school teacher treads behind her walker across a sunny internal courtyard to the dining room.
Joining a table of friends for a lamb roast, she doesn’t wear the typical rest home accessory - a hearing aid - and you don’t have to shout when in conversation with her. The mother of five has had just one battle with ill health and that was more than 70 years ago, when she suffered thyroid cancer.
Her secret to good health and longevity? While she puts it down to luck, she adds: ‘‘It’s important to keep busy... You’ve got to have an interest in life.’’
Robinson has always enjoyed a mixed diet, and meat and vegetables, and her eyes sparkle behind her glasses. She would like the rest home to revive the discussion club that existed when she first moved in six years ago. ’’I’m interested in the wide world, not just silly little picture books. I get fed up with that. I’m interested in interesting topics of conversation.’’
At the last Census, there were 558 centenarians like her, including an estimated 25 to 50 of those who were 105 and older. Doctors predict that 100 will become the new 90. With eight living supercentenarians in the world today (the oldest surviving woman recorded is 117-year-old Italian Emma Moran), their ranks will also increase as modern medicine and healthy lifestyles increasingly boost our lifespans.
Dr Martin Connolly, Freemasons’ Professor of Geriatric Medicine at Auckland University, talks about those older than 90 as ‘‘the survivor population’’. They’ve defied the statistics and zoomed past the average life span – 78 for men, and 85 for today’s women – either because of their genes, their lifestyles, or both. ‘‘There is some clinical evidence that those who make it to 90 and above today do seem to be different in some way. They tend to be different from the general population. They’re generally fit, healthy and vigorous 90-yearolds.’’
Connolly adds that 90-somethings in rest homes today are the same as 70-somethings at the end of World War I, boasting the same health and fitness. After almost 40 years in aged care medicine, he can usually detect the age of a person under 90, but struggles to pick the birthdate of those he sees who are 90 and over.
‘‘Some 90-year-olds I meet look like fit 75-year-olds.’’
Over time, a person’s 100th birthday won’t be such a big deal. ‘‘When I was a junior doctor in the 1980s, it was very rare to meet a 90-year-old. Now we meet them all the time.’’
With the fastest growing population being the very old, he says that by 2050, there will be six times the number of 85-plus year olds as there are today. We’ve all got a chance of living longer lives and a baby girl born today has a 17 per cent chance of turning 100. If you make it to 65, you’ve got a greater chance of getting to 85. And from there, if you get past 90, your chances of longevity continue.
In Upper Hutt,109-year-old Madeline Anderson is believed to be our oldest Kiwi. In Whangarei, 103-year-old Ella Bayes doesn’t do the rest home fitness classes because she finds them ‘‘too sedate’’.
Is the body designed to last so long though? Connolly says old people are prone to muscularskeletal problems – their bones and joints often creak from osteoarthritis. Those who break a hip from a fall have a 20 per cent chance of dying. From the age of 85, the biggest health issue is cognitive decline and dementia, but the proportion of those getting it is falling.
His tip for those wanting to reach 100? Exercise the brain postretirement, stay active and socialise. Frailty is a major issue among the old, and being ‘‘a bit chubby’’ protects against dying young’’.
A centenarian in the family
When my grandmother, May Catherall, celebrated her 100th birthday last weekend, her sisters, Dawn, 90, and Jean, 91 were there to celebrate. Longevity runs in the family - it was quite a moment when my great-grandfather, George Mckeown, turned 90 in 1982, passing away a year later. His father would have seemed ancient when he died in 1932, at the age of 87. One of Grandma’s brothers passed away at 96; her sister, Phil, died aged 88.
When I asked her the secret to a long life, my grandmother said: ‘‘Hard work.’’
Along with her longevity genes, she kept herself physically and mentally active until just a few years ago. Living in Christchurch, she grew plants and vegetables from a small plot, selling them at her gate. When she wasn’t digging soil or ripping out weeds, she filled in crosswords.
When her husband passed away in his 70s, she relocated to Napier to be near two of her four children, including my father, moving into a rest home 13 years ago.
A keen bowler, she continued to play bowls with fellow residents, tended pot plants on her apartment veranda, and was renowned for whipping anyone who would dare play her at a card game.
In the past couple of years, her health has slipped and she can get muddled. Her skin is so thin that her calves are covered by soft sheaths, bleeding when she bumps them, her vision is poor and she wears hearing aids. Despite that, she only takes one pill a day - a calcium tablet.
My grandmother has always been a strong woman and a fighter, and if anyone was going to defy the odds and reach 100, it would be her.