Ageing Phenotypes

Abstract

People growing old face several problems like loss of body function and increased risk for diseases. Maintaining good health and body function is vital for healthy ageing. Biological complexity and diversity of the ageing process render no simple, reliable and single technique to measure someone’s healthy ageing. Hence to know about the key features of healthy ageing, (1) the healthy ageing phenotypes (HAP) with five domains such as physiological and metabolic health, physical capability, cognitive function, psychological and subjective wellbeing and social wellbeing, and (2) the way to measuring the HAP are discussed in this chapter. This chapter covers very limited conceptual and practical problems in recognizing and measuring the healthy ageing phenotypes. In specific, the present chapter describes some aspects of HAP, yet which is not adequately detailed before. The conceptualization of HAP is at the early stage of research. The data discussed in the present study helps other researchers to assess the possible utility of the tools to measure the HAP and enable them to include still more tools in respective domains of HAP for their enhanced assessment.