The Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine

A Need for Collaboration in Studies of Aging

Roland C. Clement

As member of a Committee on Aging sponsored by the Program for Humanities in Medicine at Yale University during the last two years, I have had the advantage of hearing and/or reading many summaries of the implications of the demographic shift of recent decades, wherein those living into their eighties and nineties in the economically advanced nations, has been  increasing substantially.

What this new extensive literature reveals, however, is that we have hardly learned to ask the right questions. These are mostly questions of  meaning and fulfillment, what it means to have a “happy life,” what sort of  basic income will suffice, etc.  Inquiry also seems to have failed to assess the well-being of those on the verge of entering their final decades. What motivation for living do they have now?  There is, fortunately, a growing awareness that the pursuit of wealth provides no assurance of future happiness.  And there is a slowly developing awareness that the sciences have failed to provide us with a theory of sexuality for those remaining decades. And so far, most studies have focused on individuals, with  little reference to the society on which these individuals depend for so much.

This note is mostly to call attention to one neglected aspect of investigating the complex question of  how to improve those final decades.

Most research is done by young  people in university settings.  The focus is on gathering data, and their commitment to reflection is time-limited because they must demonstrate their skill at data-gathering during the college years.

But research on aging by young people is anachronistic. They lack the experience necessary to ask the right questions, or to understand the nature of the population sample they are studying,

This is not science, since science has traditionally excluded questions of value in its pursuit of objectivity.  The central problem posed by aging is the question of continued well-being.  And that is subjectively assessed.  Physical and physiological problems associated with aging are properly questions of senescence.  Attitudinal problems provide psychology with its hopeful toe-old in science.  For the patients, the challenge is to accumulate years without feeling old.

So it seems important that research on aging pursued by anyone too young to have acquired the perspective of one who has survived long enough to be considered aged, should be done collaboratively with one who is aged and can help assess the adequacy of questions from “he inside.” The assessment of responses will also benefit from continued collaboration.

Finally, research on individuals will yield only clues if inadequate attention is paid to the social milieu that produced the individuals. There are no self-made men.

Published: August 25, 2003