There has been a reduction in cognitive impairment and a rise in the proportion of life spent healthy in England in the last 20 years, researchers say today.
The research was carried out by Professor Carol Jagger and colleagues at Newcastle University, UK. They explain that in most developed countries, life expectancy is rising by at least two years every decade. However, disability shows increases, decreases, and stagnation in various studies.
"Health expectancies such as disability-free life expectancy combine information about quantity and quality of remaining years, and provide an improved indication of different scenarios, including whether: the extra years of life are healthy or unhealthy," they write in The Lancet.
So they looked at changes in various health expectancies in England between 1991 and 2011, using figures from Cognitive Function and Ageing Studies in over-65s in Cambridgeshire, Newcastle, and Nottingham.
They focused on self-perceived health, cognitive impairment on the Mini-Mental State Examination, and disability in activities of daily living, as well as "health expectancies" for different ages and men versus women.
This showed a 4.5 year gains in life expectancy at age 65 for men, and a 3.6 year gain for women, over the 20 year period. There were equivalent gains in years free of any cognitive impairment.
"Gains were also identified in years in excellent or good self-perceived health," the team reports. But gains in disability-free years were much smaller, due to increased mild disability.
The authors conclude: "Reasons for these patterns are unknown but might include increasing obesity during previous decades. Our findings have wide ranging implications for health services and for extension of working life."
Jagger, C. et al. A comparison of health expectancies over two decades in England: results of the Cognitive Function and Ageing Study I and II. The Lancet 9 December 2015 doi: 10.1016/ S0140-6736(15)00947-2 [abstract]
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