Old and well functioning.

According to the majority of older people preservation of physical and psychosocial functioning is important in their live. However, two third of older people have one or more chronic disease, with a mean number of conditions of 2.5. For older people these chronic conditions become problematic as soon as these conditions threat daily live activities and vitality. Functional decline and loss of vitality can change the balance in daily living negatively with the risk of a cascade breakdown. This group of older people is vulnerable; this vulnerability is often defined as “frailty”. Although frailty is studied in a growing number of studies, the pathway to frailty is almost unknown. Age, disease, loss of muscle mass and bone mineral density are considered as key factors in the process of frailty. The lack of understanding of the physiology and etiology of frailty causes a problem in the development of effective preventive interventions. Preventive interventions could enable people, even in old age and with chronic conditions, to live independently the life they choose to live. Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) such as coronary ischemic disease, heart failure and cerebrovascular accidents are prominent among the chronic conditions that predispose elderly people to functional limitations and disability. Because of the aging of the population, the number of people with functional limitations and disability will only increase.



The aim of this project is to gain insight in which somatic, cognitive and psychosocial
factors contribute to preservation of functioning, in order to identify older people with potential
risk of functional decline in an early stage and develop interventions to prevent or delay
functional decline to enable older people to stay independent and able to take care of themselves.

N/A

1. Baseline visits 10y ago;

2. Follow-up visits planned for September 2009 until April 2011.

None.