Over the last 150 years, human life expectancy at birth has nearly doubled across the industrialized countries due to improved public health and medical interventions and an improvement of living conditions in general.  Even in less developed countries the percentage of old aged people increases steadily. By 2050 it is expected that nearly 1.5 billion people will be older than 65 years worldwide. 1.2 billions of these old aged people are predicted to live in developing countries. But also in industrialized countries age distributions among populations will change dramatically. This change in population composition, with an ever increasing percentage of elderly who are also living longer, will have major effects on society, among which are health care needs and costs of care. Especially in industrialized countries the awareness of age and the experience of growing older are inherent components of the self of most people in their adult years and more and more people are becoming afraid of growing older and its risks of somatic change.  Old age is associated with somatic change, medical problems, increasing helplessness, loneliness, economic problems, the need of social support and a low social status in a youth oriented society. All these factors are well known to reduce quality of life. This makes a scientific analysis of this part of human life history and especially of factors influencing health related quality of life during senescence absolutely necessary. Health related quality of life is a broad and multidimensional construct that includes various domains of physical, psychological and social health. Ageing and the process of senescence affects all these domains and reduce quality of life among the elderly in general. Furthermore ageing and senescence increase vulnerabilities in old age, which per se reduce quality of life during this phase of life. Health related quality of life during old age is also influenced by socioeconomic factors as well as by subjective well-being and the individual self concept. The socioeconomic situation during old age but also subjective well-being and the individual self concept differ markedly between men and women. Therefore gender is an important factor of successful ageing. It is well documented that all these differences depend on gender associated disadvantages such as a lower socioeconomic status of old aged women or a higher rate of widowhood among them in comparison to males of the same age. Therefore it can be assumed that gender has a profound impact on quality of life among old age people. Beside the analysis of the impact of gender on the ageing process, age dependent changes in body composition affect health related quality of life. Especially the reduction of lean body mass, the so called sarcopenia has profound impact on well being during old age.

Current Projects:

• Age related changes in body composition and health related quality of life

• Childlessness and health related quality of life during old age