Health Care Funding Chapter 1. A process of gradual and spontaneous change, resulting in maturation through childhood, puberty, and young adulthood and then decline through middle and late age. Although aging has both the positive component of development and the negative component of decline, senescence refers only to the degenerative processes that ultimately make continued life impossible. The age-related increase in insulin levels and body fat that occurs in late life may be beneficial when available nutrition is limited. In contrast, the memory impairment that occurs with age is considered senescence.
Senescence has no positive features.
Differentiating between normal aging and successful aging is useful. Normal aging refers to the common complex of diseases and impairments that characterize many of the elderly. The latter may maintain an active healthy life until death. Persons who age successfully avoid experiencing many of the unwanted features of aging. The elderly may be able to avoid the complications of vascular disease, even while the circulatory system continues to age, by controlling blood glucose levels and body fat percentage.