Aging, Mortality, Morbidity and Mobility(Aging and age-related diseases)

It is clear that incidence and/or mortality of many chronic diseases in adulthood are remarkably increased by aging. In this context, aging is evidently strong risk factor for them. However, it is also clear that they are not necessarily and equally occurred by the same degree of aging. As World Health Organization (WHO) emphasized, mortality and morbidity are useless for evaluating autonomy as a proxy of health in the elderly. Thus, in aging and aged societies, establishment of conceptual frameworks and measures of function capacity as well as productivity are urgently needed. We, as medical professions, need to make every effort to keep the elderly as healthy and active possible. Independency or autonomy in terms of functional capacity as a new health indicator which takes well-being of the old people into consideration, is mentioned in the present paper based on our population-based longitudinal and interdisciplinary study on aging (TMIG-LISA)