What is ‘super-ageing?’

Key points:

• Cognitive abilities are brain-based skills, such as intelligence, perseverance, creative thinking ability and pattern recognition

• An academic review, published in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, assessed 44 studies across five major research databases from their inception until July of 2023

• ‘Super-ageing’ is not concretely defined, but is generally tested through memory performance that is equivalent or comparable to that of a younger adult range

University of New South Wales Sydney’s Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing has hoped to inform future dementia prevention strategies through clarifying what is considered ‘super-ageing.’

‘Super-ageing’ is loosely defined as maintaining cognitive and physical performance levels comparable to those in a younger adult range, instead of cognitive and physical decline.

Researchers found that super-ageing tests often focused on memory-based tasks but overlooked other aspects of cognition or the maintenance of high-level abilities over time.

The systematic literature search of 44 studies aimed to evaluate the literature identifying older adults with exceptional cognitive performance with emphasis on how super-ageing is defined and the ‘key clinical features’ of a super-ageing population.

Dr Alice Powell, one of the review’s authors, said that understanding and identifying exceptional cognition is extremely powerful for research.

“It would allow us to increase the value of research insights gained from studying this extraordinary population — both in terms of ageing well and preventing and treating neurodegenerative conditions, such as Alzheimer’s disease,” she said.

She noted that there were major discrepancies in these approaches such as the age-range of super-agers and comparator groups, along with the choice of cognitive domains assessed across studies.

It is believed that a concrete definition of the term could lead to a unified understanding of how cognitive super-ageing impacts a person’s physical capacity, psychological well-being and degree of social engagement.

Harvard Health Publishing reported that the key to super-ageing was moving out of your comfort zone to stay mentally and physically young, as per a 2017 study conducted by neurologist Dr Bradford Dickerson.

Dr Dickerson found that older people were more likely to be super-agers if they approached tasks as a challenge to overcome rather than simply giving up.

Tasks that could help with super-ageing include:

• board games;
• reading;
• puzzles;
• socialising;
• arts and crafts.

The term ‘super-ager’ was first coined by the Northwestern Mesulam Centre for Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease and defined as ‘individuals over the age of 80 with episodic memory performance at least as good as normative values for 50 – 65-year-olds, while their non-memory performance is on the mean level of their peers.’

Previous research has suggested that as many as 12 – 35 percent of healthy ageing older populations could be super-agers.

With a universal definition and set of metrics to test for cognitive ability and determine super-ageing, researchers can strive to support Australia’s ageing population. The national economy is expected to feel the effects of Australia’s ageing population by the year 2063, according to the Intergenerational Report published by the Federal Treasury.

• The number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double by 2063
• The number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple
• The number of centenarians is expected to increase six-fold

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