It affects about one in three older adults, it’s debilitating, it fast-tracks mortality, and finally it is gaining greater recognition.

Over the past decade, dementia has jumped from the fourth to the second leading cause of death in Australia – and for Australian women it has overtaken heart disease to become the top cause of death.

Animal protein – particularly whey powder – is popularly endorsed as the best source of amino acids for boosting muscle strength.

A new study has found that adults over 84 years who eat more protein are less likely to suffer disability, which is a significant problem in this growing age group.

New research adds to growing evidence that dementia can be prevented or delayed with modifiable lifestyle factors.

The number of people with food allergies is rising dramatically around the world. In fact, data suggest that peanut allergies have tripled over the past couple of decades.

Television, technology, and transport have transformed our leisure time, communication and movement. These luxuries have also added to a global crisis of inactivity and chronic illness.

If you ask the average young person how old is ‘old’, they would say over 50. Ask an older person and they would say over 65. To complicate things further, chronological age is not necessarily the same as biological, social or psychological age.

In 2017 Nikki King took her mini foxie Daphne for regular visits to Bupa Aged Care. They were “pet therapy” volunteers. Every week, King would have to reintroduce herself and Daphne as many of the residents didn’t remember who they were.

Today’s older generation would remember manual typewriters and public phone boxes. Some might even recall when television first entered people’s homes.

It’s been said that “to live is to play”. A bonus of aging is more time for leisurely pursuits. Indeed, a 2016 UK study reported that leisure activities and hobbies were by far the most popular aspirations for older adults.

In 2015, Helping Hand aged care centres implemented an innovative, 12-week exercise program to see if it could improve cognitive and functional abilities in older adults with significant memory loss or dementia.

Welcome news for the aged care sector – the Australian government has announced that a long sought-after royal commission will investigate an “industry in crisis”

Jane is 52 years old. She suffers chronic neck pain and impaired mobility, resulting from an occupational violence attack. But she needs to continue her activities in the domestic domain and understands the importance of staying active despite the pain.

What better way to breathe life into aged care than with young children. That’s what intergenerational programs are starting to do in Australia. 

Chronic diseases, impaired mobility and diminished quality of life with aging seem inevitable to most. Although healthy lifestyle habits protect us, researchers say they may have found another way to reverse the aging process.

Although health is core business for hospitals, junk food and soft drinks have long dominated kiosks and vending machines that line hospital foyers and corridors.

People have long thought that dementia is unavoidable if you carry risky genes. Now research is slowly but surely debunking this fateful thinking

While physical decline is an inevitable product of growing old, some people stay stronger and live longer than most. And they tend to cluster in certain regions of the world that have attracted the curiosity of researchers.

Some decline in cognitive faculties is inevitable in the twilight years. But several lifestyle factors can help mitigate waning acuity and increasing forgetfulness.

Advances in mapping the human genome have fostered understanding of our genomic blueprint and its influence on molecular processes, health and disease.