Going Into Decline

Throughout adulthood and old age, well-being appears to remain relatively stable. However, evidence is emerging that late in life, well-being declines considerably. A study published in Psychology and  Aging examines long-term longitudinal data of deceased participants in national samples from Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In all 3 nations and across the adult age range, well-being was relatively stable over age but declined rapidly with impending death. In examining life transition points in the elderly, the researchers found alarmingly steep changes in overall well-being in the 3 to 5 years preceding death, after which normative rates of decline steepened by a factor of 3 or more. This decline is not specific to decreased intellectual or sensory functioning but can also include subjective well-being. It is noteworthy that this pattern of rapid decline is not limited to the elderly but has also been found in younger cohorts. The findings suggest that impending mortality or declining health overwhelms the regulatory mechanisms that usually maintain stable health.    These mortality-related mechanisms drive late-life changes in well-being and highlight the need for further refinement of psychological concepts about how and when late-life declines in psychosocial functioning begin.

For the abstract