Centenarians, Supercentenarians: We Must Develop New Measurements Suitable for Our Oldest Old.

Abstract

Researchers and clinicians need to develop measurements that capture the nuances of the many senior successes found in centenarians and supercentenarians in order to empower people to improve healthspans for the duration of extreme lifespans. Only after these measurement tools are created can we accurately assist our oldest old in fostering further development. Marian Diamond, the mother of neuroplasticity, opined that her evidence was applicable in humans; with the solitary change of adding “TLC” to the research protocol, her rats continued “Enriching Heredity” throughout the equivalent of 90 human years; this could be the first proof of the power of positive psychology (Diamond, 1988, 2001). The Flynn effect (Flynn, 2018) found the 20th century was “dominated by massive IQ gains from one generation to another” as documented in “at least 34 nations.” Neuroscience provides evidence-based interventions to “prevent, delay onset, and/or reverse” cognitive decline and dementia (Ball et al., 2002, 2013; Mahncke et al., 2006) and to enhance brain architecture and function (Diamond, 1988, 2001; Pereira et al., 2007; Angevaren et al., 2008; Larson, 2008; Baker et al., 2010; Lojovich, 2010; Erickson et al., 2011, 2014; Jessberger and Gage, 2014; Nagamatsu et al., 2014; Niemann et al., 2016; Ryan and Nolan, 2016; Shaffer, 2016; Burzynska et al., 2017; Edwards et al., 2018). This article reviews research showing that healthy aging without dementia is achievable (Andersen-Ranberg et al., 2001; Perls, 2004; Jopp et al., 2016; Qiu and Fratiglioni, 2018) even with lesions postmortem (Mizutani and Shimada, 1992) and urges development and application of measurements suitable for centenarians and supercentenarians which could inform development of evidence-based interventions across the extreme lifespan. Search efforts were primarily within PubMed using combinations of keywords listed above and names of prominent researchers in the field. Reference lists in articles and related reviews were searched. Studies reviewed met rigorous scientific standards, were review articles or random control trials. Periodic searches of this nature were conducted between 2016 and 2021.