Active Ageing Research
Between mid-2009 and mid-2019, according to the Office for National Statistics the proportion of people in the UK aged 65 years and over increased by 22.9% to 12.4 million. That is an increase of 2.3 million making it the fastest-growing age group and constituting 18.5% of the population. Healthy ageing allows people to enjoy a high quality of life and can reduce pressure on health and social care provision. Therefore, promotion and engagement in regular activity among older adults has never been so important.
Although the rate of increase is slowing, life expectancy continues to rise. Children born between 2017 and 2019 can now presume to live until 79.4 years (men) and 83.1 years (women). Establishing healthy behaviours for this new long-life generation is of course important from an early age. Life expectance isn’t static, as people progress through life numerous factors will begin to have an impact. For those that reached 65 years of age between 2017-2019, current data shows they can expect to live for a further 18.8 years (men) and 21.1 years (women). The challenge and opportunity, therefore, is enabling the current population of older adults to remain fit and healthy well into their 7th, 8th, 9th or even 10th decades.
Active Ageing Research (AAR) was formed to achieve just this. The group was established to bring together and drive collaboration amongst experts from universities and health institutions around the world. AAR is focused on supporting healthier, more active ageing to help mobility, preserve independence and maintain a good quality of life. This is achieved via the use of physical activity and social programmes designed to support behaviour change across a spectrum of abilities. The AAR cohort has been responsible for numerous projects, with thousands of older adults participating in programmes aimed at supporting improved and prolonged independence.
The latest programme from AAR is REACT (REtirement in ACTion) and is spearheaded by Dr Afroditi Stathi. This groundbreaking research, which is funded by the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR), includes experts based at the Universities of Birmingham, Bath, Bristol and Exeter. The team also contains collaborators from America as REACT builds on previous work from the Lifestyle Interventions and Independence of Elders (LIFE) study which was based in the USA.
REACT is a community programme that combines exercise, education and social activities designed for older adults starting to show age-related mobility declines. The research that underpins REACT took place over a four-and-a-half-year period and involved 777 participants aged between 65 and 98. The aim was to help people establish positive behaviours in terms of regular and beneficial activity. This was hopefully achieved via a combination of group-based exercise and a health maintenance programme that included education and social activities
Results from REACT will be published over the next few months. Further insights will continue to come as the programme moves to its implementation phase delivered by health and leisure providers across the UK.
The AAR group continues and is already developing its next study: ACE (Active, Connected, Engaged). ACE, like REACT, is funded by the NIHR, will examine whether older adults acting as volunteers can effectively support other older adults who are at risk of mobility decline.
Despite the increasing proportion of older adults within the population, nationally and locally available resources to support mobility programmes are scarce. Prevention is much more effective than cure and helping older adults maintain their independence and a high quality of life is incumbent on society as a whole. Active Ageing Research is pioneering pragmatic and cost-effective ways within which to achieve this. To date, little evidence exists as to whether volunteer-driven, community-based active ageing programmes actually work. This is what AAR, via the ACE project, will seek to find out and then distribute their recommendations across the country.
As the UK population ages, helping them to remain healthy, active and independent is essential in maintaining a high quality of life for as long as possible. This needs to be a goal for society, not just because it can help save money and resources in terms of health and social care provision, but because it is the right thing to do. Via the work of AAR, more evidence will emerge as to the most successful, cost-effective and beneficial programmes that can achieve these goals.
If you would like to find out more about AAR, how you can set up a REACT group or how you can support the ACE research please feel free to get in touch via info@activeageingresearch.org