Aging and Behavioral Medicine

Abstract

This chapter first described the relative prevalence of behavioral factors in the older population, illustrating the commonality of certain social, psychological, and lifestyle changes that take place in old age. Although the effects of some of these changes may be relatively smaller at older compared with younger ages, there is no doubt that behavioral factors continue to impact on health among the oldest old. We described evidence for behavioral factors having an impact on general health outcomes such as mortality and morbidity patterns and also on specific aging-related health outcomes such as physical function decline, frailty, and cognitive decline. The chapter finished with emphasizing considerations-selective survival, somatic confounding, and the differential role of physiological stress mechanisms-that one has to keep in mind when examining and interpreting behavioral medicine in an older population. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)