Health

The Greatest Challenge of Aging: Finding Balance Amid Accelerating Change

Listen to Dr. Duxbury's discussion:

Dr. Andrew Duxbury’s definition of aging is not the same one you’ll find in the dictionary.

According to Duxbury, a geriatrician with the UAB Center for Aging, “One of the best definitions of aging I’ve found is that it’s ‘a loss of ability to cope with change’…whether that change be physiologic, sociologic, internal, external, or whatever.

“A young person has enormous capacity to deal with whatever life throws at them. But that sort of ‘balance point’ shrinks as people get older and older. So that for a person in their 80s or 90s, the slightest wind can knock them off that balance point—though it’s something that wouldn’t faze a younger person at all.

“As a result, a lot of what we do in geriatrics is about keeping people poised on their ever-shrinking balance point so that they can continue to do well.”

Helping those patients cope with the trials of aging has taught him many lessons that have shaped his own life and attitudes, Duxbury says:

“The first question that’s almost always asked me when people find out what I do is, ‘Don’t you find it depressing, dealing with older people all day?’

“No. I find that I don’t get depressed at all, dealing with chronically ill and elderly individuals. Their stories are fascinating. I feel very connected to the human family, and to a society that was before my time. I feel I’ve gotten a really good sense of where we, the American people, have come from, over the past century—just from having met so many of those people who have ‘been there, done that.’

“Also, even among my patients who have fairly limited life expectancies, there’s a kind of…nobleness and grace of aging—and a recognizing of the human condition in health and matters of life and death—that makes me constantly inspired.”

A downloadable audio file of Dr. Duxbury’s article is also available.