An unused engine rusts. A still stream stagnates. An untended garden tangles. It is a powerful and universal truth.
Walter M. Bortz

Old men should be explorers
Here and there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity.
T.S. Eliot, "East Coker"

Chapter 4 showed that cognitive functioning does not necessarily diminish with age, and that many of the world's towering intellects have aged like great wines, growing fuller and richer with time.¹ Given the absence of organic disease, the active brain that is "exercised" regularly and stretched to its limits will function longer and better than the inactive brain. Alfred Steiglitz, Albert Einstein, Jacques Barzun, Claude Monet, Arturo Toscaninni, Claude Pepper, Mildred Fenwick, Hume Cronyn, and Pablo Casals were all making major intellectual and artistic contributions well into their eighties and nineties. Miecyzslaw Horszowski, the great pianist, recorded Mozart, Chopin, and Schumann on his hundredth birthday. Strom Thurmond, the oldest U.S. senator in history, won another term in 1996 at age 93. Whether or not you admire his politics, you must admire his chutzpah.

Unfortunately, sustained healthy cognitive functioning as we age is not a given. It is affected by reciprocal relationships between continued cognitive activity, a healthy body, a positive state of mind, physical exercise, and a supportive social environment. Each of these components can transfer positive energy to the others; conversely, each can also transfer negativity to the others. This reciprocity is critical, but can be subverted or overcome where there is sufficient will. A longitudinal study by K. Warner Schaie gave powerful evidence of this reciprocity.

Analyses from the Seattle study showed that people with cardiovascular disease tended to decline earlier in all mental abilities than those with no cardiovascular disease. Schaie then tried a fascinating intervention: he gave some of the cardiovascular disease victims training in inductive reasoning. Those who had received training had fewer episodes of illness and fewer clinic visits than those in the control group who had received no training.²

The implications of this research are mind-boggling but not out of line with other research (discussed below) that gives increasing support for the intimate connections between mental and physical health.

While entering the Elderlearning Survey data, we were impressed by the number of respondents who appended notes indicating an intuitive understanding of the importance of continued mental activity. Remarks such as "I need to keep the gray cells humming" or "exercise and learning are my lifeline" or "mental and physical activity keep me alive" are grace notes interspersed among the impersonal checks and numbers called for by the survey design. The respondents wanted us to know that they are doing their damndest to hold on to their intellectual abilities.

One of the respondents provides a moving example of how an active intellect can defuse the power of physical decline. This 79-year-old woman ascribed her recent low degree of participation in learning activities to a year of medical difficulties. She had undergone a knee replacement, two hip replacements, and numerous stubborn bone infections that had kept her hospitalized for weeks. Nevertheless, when asked to rate her health, she checked "good!" In a note appended to the survey, she said that she was looking forward to going back to her self-directed study of the Jewish origins of Christianity and also hoped to follow up on earlier studies of Native American art by taking an Elderhostel trip to the Southwest. "By the way," she concluded, "I'm also reading all Hillerman's and Erdrich's novels about contemporary Native American life. I started that project while I was bedridden."

This woman's outlook lends credence to Walter Bortz's contention that, excluding organic disease, the active brain resists deterioration. Abraham Maslow goes even further, saying that capacities clamor to be used, and cease their clamor only when they are well used. In contrast, the unused capacity or organ can atrophy or even become a disease center, thus diminishing the person. We know that "cerebral exercise" causes chemical as well as physical changes. Animal studies support the thesis that the active older brain develops in positive ways. The brains of rats whose lives are enriched show a higher content of noradrenaline than control groups.³ Moreover, this enrichment enhances their cognitive capacity. Old rats, when placed in enriched environments, solve mazes faster than their deprived counterparts. "They are smarter."⁴ There are also demonstrable connections between physiological changes in brain function and behavior. "Behavioral events alter neurochemical function and altered neurochemical function can change behavior."⁵ Thinking (or mental action), like physical exercise, stimulates increased metabolic activity.

Brains certainly do age. But aging can be slowed (or made invisible) by active mental exercise in challenging learning situations. Blood supply, with its extra oxygen and nutrients, goes to the area being challenged--just as with a weightlifter's biceps.

George Bernard Shaw wrote in Back to Methuselah,

If the weight lifter, under the trivial stimulus of an athletic competition can "put up a muscle," it seems reasonable to believe that an equally earnest and convinced philosopher could "put up a brain." Both are directive of vitality to a certain end.⁶

Although the muscle/brain simile may seem counter-intuitive--we don't visualize a brain as getting bigger with exercise or diminishing with disuse--this phenomenon is perfectly consistent with animal and human physiology in which stimulation of brain cells by an active energy source produces growth.

There are also strong relationships between physical measures of cerebral physiology and social function. The stimulation of social contacts and continued cognitive demands slows, if it cannot totally prevent, cerebral entropy. Over 30 years ago, Robert Butler, the noted gerontologist, recognized that cognitive function is sustained by active social involvement; he reported "unexpected" relationships between physical measures of cerebral physiology and social function. In 1968, Butler, wrote that maintenance of social contacts, social responsiveness, and goals in living were all associated with better brain function.⁷

However, social involvement can occur in many ways. The conventional wisdom, that even mentally healthy men and women deteriorate when removed from their home environment to a nursing home, is not always true, as the following anecdote recounted by a physician friend illustrates.

Dmitra was an 86-year-old Greek woman living in Boston with her devoted son Dmitri and his wife Mary. Dmitri and Mary had vowed to each other that Dmitra would never have to leave their home. But for the past few years, it had not been easy for the couple to cope with Dmitra's increasing irritability and bad temper. Formerly a warm and loving grandmother who fit in well with the family's schedule and way of life, she now complained about Mary's cooking, about the noise the grandchildren made, and about the family's "neglect." She generally made everyone feel sad and guilty. Nothing they could do pleased her.

Because her mother-in-law was now unable to negotiate stairs, Mary had rigged up a pulley system with a basket that could be lowered down with written requests and returned with mail, snacks, newspapers, or loving notes. But the basket became a dreaded vehicle for constant demands, complaints, and near paranoid charges. Dmitra's room was either too hot or too cold. She was either hungry and demanding a meal an hour after lunch or sending back an uneaten midday treat. She demanded that someone change the TV channel, and then, five minutes later, change it back. She had stopped reading and was no longer interested in politics or what was going on at the Greek Social Center. She would ask Mary or Dmitri to come up to keep her company, but when they did she told them to go away. Even her favorite granddaughter was afraid to go into Dmitra's room because she would be accused of switching her grandma's medicines or sneaking out with boys or taking drugs.

Like many recent immigrant families, this was a close one, and there were constant visits by aunts, uncles, and cousins, all of whom wanted to spend time with Dmitra, but she sent them away, saying that they were just there to steal her jewelry. Her son was the only one she would talk to, and even he suffered her tirades.

Finally, their previously happy family life threatened by the omnipresence of this miserable old woman, Mary spoke the unspeakable: she suggested that Dmitra be put in a nursing home. Her husband reluctantly agreed. They searched for the best place they could find and a month later drove Dmitra to its door. The nursing home director suggested that the family not call or visit for a few days but give Dmitra time to grow accustomed to her new surroundings.

The next two days were difficult for Mary, who felt a double guilt for having institutionalized her mother-in-law and for not visiting her. Then, on the morning of the third day, the phone rang. It was Dmitra. Her voice had lost its querulous whine and sounded brisk and upbeat. "If you're coming to visit me today," she said, "I have a few errands for you to do. I want you to stop at the library and get out some books on modern Greek history, and I'd like you to find grandpa's old Greek records."

"Sure," said Mary, "but why, mother?" "Oh," answered Dmitra, "I've been asked by some of my friends here to give a course on modern Greek history, and I thought I'd also like to play them some real Greek music. My roommate gave a course on Jewish rituals a few weeks before I came, and everybody said it was good, but mine is going to be much better. I'll wow these old ladies."

In an ironic twist on the usual story of the accelerated decline of the institutionalized, Dmitra, given the opportunity to play a constructive role among her peers, had recovered her sense of self. Nor was this a momentary upward blip on a downward trajectory. Dmitra followed the course on modern Greek history with one on Greek cooking, which she was allowed to demonstrate in the institution's kitchen, and then coaxed her new friends into forming a reading group. She was apparently re-energized by the active learning and teaching that now engaged her time. She ate and slept better, negotiated her way around the nursing home without a wheelchair, and was a graceful hostess to her family when they visited.

This real story vividly illustrates the power of the mind-body connection. Renewed cognitive activity in a setting where learning would have an immediate payoff in peer recognition enabled Dmitra to regain much of the psychological and physical ground she had lost over the past few years. Her learning enhanced not only the quality of her life but of her family's life as well. She may or may not live any longer, but certainly she is living better and will leave behind a legacy of positive memories.

On the other hand, anyone who has ever visited a poorly run nursing home can attest to the reality of brain atrophy in a nonstimulating environment. This reality is now recognized in first-rate retirement centers and domiciliary institutions where efforts are made to provide regular opportunities for social intercourse and mental exercise, e.g., birthday parties, line dancing, bridge, current events discussions, and crafts instruction.

A rapidly increasing body of evidence supports the idea that mental exercise increases brain function, but an important study by Dr. David Snowdon, currently being conducted at the University of Kentucky's Chandler Medical Center, may come up with more definitive data. In what is called the "nun study," teams of renowned scientists are working with the School Sisters of Notre Dame on a longitudinal study of aging and Alzheimer's disease, comparing disease and death rates of the more educated with those of the less educated.⁸ So far, 550 sisters have agreed to participate in all aspects of the study, including brain donation after death, which will give the researchers the first opportunity to do a large-scale study of the aging human brain, comparing the brains of the cognitively active with those of the less active. Early papers coming out of the study were so suggestive of the positive effects of continued learning that many of the nuns reported they were signing up for courses and increasing the amount of their informal learning activities.⁹ There was also significant evidence of the connection between longevity and the level of education. Sisters with a bachelor's degree or higher were more likely to survive to old age while maintaining their ability to perform self-care activities.

"Education is one of the most powerful and mysterious variables," says Dr. Richard Suzman of the National Institute of Aging. A high level of education seems to be associated with longevity, and there has been a dramatic increase in the education levels and the longevity of today's older adults.¹⁰ Numerous studies have shown that better educated people are healthier as they age, but the reasons for this have not been definitively pinpointed. It may be that through their education they have learned how to take better care of themselves, or that the links between education and higher income have contributed to a healthier life style, or that some genetic characteristics are at work. It has been suggested that "by stimulating the brain, education may establish more neuronal pathways early in life as well as prompt people to remain cognitively active throughout life."¹¹ However, this effect is not limited to formal education. K. Warner Schaie, director of the Penn State gerontology center, says that even the self-educated, "those who led very active lives--traveling, reading books, taking courses--maintained intellectual function much longer than those who became couch potatoes."¹²

In the meantime, while waiting for still more definitive studies, "use it or lose it" remains a practical prescription for continued mental competence as we age.

The evidence that using the brain strengthens it, that we can indeed "exercise" the brain to keep it functioning at a high level, is undeniable. Millions of older learners have already chosen to use it rather than lose it as they engage in a variety of demanding learning activities, from chess to international affairs to chaos theory.

But what about physical exercise--walking, swimming, bicycling--activities seemingly unrelated to brain function? A growing body of evidence supports Bortz's contention that the increased metabolic activity induced by physical exercise results in a higher level of metabolic activity in the brain with beneficial results for memory.

A review of biological changes commonly attributed to the process of aging demonstrates the close similarity of most of the changes subsequent to a period of enforced physical inactivity . . . at least a portion of the changes commonly attributed to aging is in reality caused by disuse and, as such, is subject to correction. There is no drug in current or prospective use that holds as much promise for sustained health as a lifetime program of physical exercise.¹³

Goggin and Stelmach maintain that physical exercise "can minimize and/or slow the rate of decline in some cognitive and physiological functions."¹⁴ In 1985, Salthouse found that older adults who were physically trained had faster response times (RT) than age-matched adults who were untrained; he concluded that although the differences in RT between younger and older adults cannot be completely eliminated, those who exercise clearly have an advantage over those who do not.

A study by Robert Dustman divided 43 sedentary subjects, aged 55 to 70, into three sections.

. . . one did aerobic exercises; one did flexibility exercises; and one group remained inactive. The aerobic exercise group improved in all the expected physical measurements over the other two groups . . . [but] their cognitive abilities [also] improved! Exercise, three hours a week for four months, led to "clear improvement" in intelligence.¹⁵

At a study done at McMaster University in Canada in 1988, 15 subjects (10 men and 5 women; mean age 66 years; age range 60 to 85) were tested before and immediately after 45 minutes of exercise and then compared with a control group on memory, mood, and cognitive function. Results showed greater improvement in six of the eight scores of cognitive function in those who exercised as compared to the control subjects. The difference was particularly marked in the logical memory test score. This finding represents an improvement in short-term memory, and corresponds to earlier research findings.¹⁶

In a somewhat similar study done on a larger population in 1989 at Scripps College, a series of cognitive tasks was given to 62 older men and women who reported that they regularly exercised vigorously and to 62 relatively sedentary men and women. All the participants were screened for neuromuscular and central nervous system disorders. The first test session covered vocabulary and measures of working memory reaction time. The second session consisted of three written tests of reasoning and two subjective well-being questionnaires. The performance of the exercisers was significantly better on measures of reasoning, working memory, vocabulary, and reaction time. Subsequent analyses showed that neither self-rated health, medical conditions, nor medications contributed to the differences between the exercise and nonexercise groups.¹⁷

These results seem valid even for the old-old. Ambulatory volunteers from a nursing home in Canada, with a mean age of 84.5 and 9.3 years of education, all shown to be normal on a mental status test, were divided into an exercise and a control group. The first group underwent a single 15-minute standardized session of nonstrenuous exercise while the control participants watched a video of similar exercises for 15 minutes. Tests of meaningfully cued memory were given pre-exercise, immediately post-exercise, and 30 minutes post-exercise. The results were statistically higher memory retrieval in the immediate post-test period for the exercised group.¹⁸ In a study of nursing home residents in the Netherlands, the recall capacities of 40 patients (average age 83) improved markedly after an exercise program.¹⁹

Clearly, physical exercise, which is routinely prescribed as medicine for the heart and lungs, is also good medicine for the brain. Most programs for older adults, whether at senior centers, local agencies, or OASIS centers, regularly combine intellectual and physical activities. The 73-year-old student mentioned in Chapter 4 who alternated between reading Aristotle and walking around the room was on to something.

Although there is little argument about the positive effects of a balanced diet on the prolongation of life and health among the elderly, not much is known about how specific dietary components relate to cognition. While Eleanor Roosevelt took garlic pills to keep her mind in good condition and our mothers told us that fish was brain food, few scientific claims have been made on behalf of specific foods or substances. Some recent work at Tufts University's Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging suggests some "limited evidence that insufficient folate and vitamin B-12 might be involved in the age-related increase in cognitive impairments."²⁰ Vitamin deficits were particularly marked in those who scored at the lower 5 or 10 percent of standard neuropsychological tests.

Low vitamin B-12 status was associated with poor performance on tests of both memory and abstract thinking, low folate status was related to poor performance on the test of abstract thinking, and low folate intake was related to poor performance on both tests. These results remained significant after controlling for age, gender, education, and income level.²¹

A recent mouse study, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,²² suggests that vitamin E in doses about 13 times the recommended level might play a role in protecting brain tissue protein from damage as we age, but as yet no definitive human studies of the effects of vitamin E have been carried out. In any case, further research on cognition and diet will likely indicate the importance of sound nutritional practice. We are what we eat.

Intellectual decline with age is not inevitable; it may even be reversible. Although a relatively new area of research for psycho-gerontologists, cognitive training is generating a lot of interest. A 1986 Penn State study reporting on 229 subjects, ranging from ages 64 to 90 with an average age of 73, showed that the effect of positive intervention on mental functioning is critical. Half the subjects showed no decline between 1970 and 1984. The researchers then provided five one-hour training sessions to 71 subjects and re-tested them. "Those individuals who showed declined intellectual ability . . . responded more favorably to the training than did those who had shown no change over the fourteen years."²³

A number of studies have demonstrated that it is possible to improve performance in such cognitive tasks as face-name memory, problem-solving tasks, and fluid intelligence abilities.²⁴ The ability of mnemonic training to substantially improve memory in the aged is almost universally acknowledged though rarely practiced. On a more prosaic level, crossword or jigsaw puzzles are handy do-it-yourself brain conditioning exercises.

Sherry Willis posits a number of interesting questions deriving from this research.²⁵

1. Does training involve the remediation of pre-existing performance levels or is it moving older adults to a new level of performance beyond their earlier capacities? In other words, is it reversing decline or simply yielding gains beyond the prior skill level?

2. Is training aimed at improving a specific skill (e.g., memory) as effective as strategy training in improving broader factors like speed, motivation, or attitude which have an effect on a broader spectrum of cognitive skills?

3. Is self-instruction or practice as effective as training?

4. What are the long-term effects of cognitive training? Are the newly learned skills retained?

In one study of older adults who received initial training in 1979, with booster training sessions in 1981 and 1986, it was found that

Significant training effects . . . indicated that subjects were able to continue to profit from cognitive interventions as they advanced from young-old to old-old age. Moreover, training subjects even into their late seventies and early eighties continue to perform at a level significantly above their baseline level (prior to training . . . 64% of the training group's performance was consistently above baseline, compared to 33% of the control group).²⁶

Clearly "there is no longer any question about the ability of older adults to learn and to benefit from education, but there is an astonishing lag between what is now known about development over the life span and what our major social institutions prescribe for the different stages of life."²⁷ The linear life plan, in which education is clustered in the first two decades of life, no longer makes sense; education is needed throughout the lifespan to help us accommodate changes in the nature of our work, navigate passages from one stage of development to another, accommodate new personal and professional situations, and respond to the challenge of successful aging.

To a greater extent than we have heretofore realized, we have significant power over the shape of our own old age. According to Dr. John W. Rowe, director of the MacArthur Foundation Consortium on Successful Aging, "Only about 30 percent of the characteristics of aging are genetically based: the rest--70 percent--is not."²⁸ This idea is carried even further by Dr. Gerald E. McClearn, a gerontological geneticist: "By age 80, for many characteristics there is hardly any genetic influence left."²⁹ This liberating concept means that individuals can choose to engage in the kinds of physical, social, and intellectual activities that will help keep them bodily and psychologically healthy, even though they cannot change their heredity or past experience.

Two stereotypes rub up against each other when we look at creativity and wisdom among older adults--one favoring youth, the other favoring age. Creativity is an attribute commonly associated with the young: poets, artists, mathematicians, theoretical physicists, the unbearded youths whose startling discoveries and innovations changed the world. Creativity is often perceived as the exclusive product of the high energy, mental acuity, and dexterity of youth. Keats and Mozart, reaching the heights in their youth, serve as the archetypes of youthful vigor and artistic drive.³⁰ Verdi, Picasso, and Monet, who peaked much later in age, are regarded with some condescension as exceptions to the rule.

Wisdom, on the other hand, is traditionally associated with age: "With the ancient is wisdom; and in length of days understanding" (Book of Job); "Knowledge comes but wisdom lingers" (Alfred, Lord Tennyson). Wisdom is also connected with creativity as art's highest culmination: "Raphael paints wisdom, Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakespeare writes it, Wren builds it" (Ralph Waldo Emerson).

People are presumed to get wiser with years and experience, to gain a seasoned understanding of the world and its follies. In ancient times, and in most Eastern civilizations today, age is directly associated with the accretion of wisdom. Confucius is depicted as a bearded sage. Homer made Nestor the oldest and the wisest of the Greeks who fought the Trojans.

Our preoccupation with wisdom and creativity may be rooted in the belief that these two capacities represent our highest aspirations and are what distinguish human beings as a species from the animals. The Elderlearning Survey respondents rated these qualities high indeed. When asked "why" they are learning, 47.2 percent checked "to engage in creative activity," and 37.7 percent checked "as part of a search for meaning and wisdom."

Dean Simonton, in "Creativity and Wisdom in Aging," defines creativity as

the ability to innovate, to change the environment rather than merely adjust to it in a more passive sense. So, we create scientific theories, compose artistic masterpieces, and construct imaginative utopias.³¹

Simonton defines wisdom as

a broad perspective on life, discerning a larger view of life's meaning than permitted by hand-to-mouth subsistence. Presumably such wisdom allows individuals to reach an equilibrium with themselves, others, and the world that smooths over the vicissitudes of mundane existence.³²

The scientist setting out to study creativity and wisdom obviously has difficulty in setting up quantitative or qualitative parameters for these sticky terms. For creativity, one solution is simply to measure output: the number of papers and books published, works of art produced and shown, and at what age. Using these quantitative measures, a number of studies support the common understanding that poets, mathematicians, and theoretical physicists do peak in their twenties or thirties, although exceptions can be cited, such as Frost and Einstein who kept rising to new peaks of creativity as they aged. In such domains as history, philosophy, literature, and general scholarship, most researchers feel that the age curve for creativity probably shows maximum output around age 40, with only a modest decline after that.

However, if one makes a distinction between quantity and quality, the proportion of major products (masterpieces or works of truly seminal meaning) tends to fluctuate randomly over the course of most careers, neither increasing nor decreasing with age. "Those individual creators who are the most productive will also, on the average, tend to be the most creative" across their lifespan.³³ The single factor that seems to inhibit creativity markedly is illness.

May Sarton, a poet, novelist, and essayist who, though suffering cancer and stroke, wrote well into her late eighties.

I have always looked forward to old age, and the reason, as the poems make clear, is that I have known so many great old people. Well, I looked forward to old age wrongly because I imagined it would be serene and uncluttered, and rightly because it would make it possible for me to grow and to create poems and books that have growth in them. I am convinced that we are on earth to make our souls. And to that extent old age, of course, is the most thrilling time of all. Because we are coming close to an end, this conviction that the making of a soul is of paramount importance is very much with us.³⁴

Sarton's "wrong" anticipation that old age would be serene and uncluttered is echoed by the 45 percent of Elderlearning Survey respondents who named lack of time as a barrier to their learning. Our lives do not get less complicated and the maintenance of homes, health, social obligations, and family relationships do not become less demanding when we age.

Sarton's "right" anticipation, that old age would be a time of growth, a time to "make our souls," has resonance for the vision of the Third Age as a time of continued development. The chambered nautilus, Oliver Wendell Holmes's "ship of pearl," is an apt metaphor for the ideal life--its shape an expanding spiral in which the inhabitant lives in the largest and newest chamber, "shaping his growing shell," leaving the "past year's dwelling for the new." This is a dynamic vision of life, each age, each stage, going beyond what has been to what can be.

In February 1996, the New York Times best seller list included Tiger in the Grass by Harriet Doerr (age 85) and Having Our Say by Sara and Elizabeth Delaney, African-American sisters (ages 99 and 100, respectively). Three years after her husband's death, 65-year-old Harriet Doerr had returned to school to complete a B.A. in European history; in 1984, at age of 73, Doerr's first novel, Stones for Ibarra, won the American Book Award. The Delaneys have no previous book; they were busy working as a school teacher and a dentist. Presumably, no one ever told Doerr or the Delaneys that they were too old to be creative. They, and thousands of other older adults who have joyfully entered into the creative process, have what Humphrey Trevelyan called, "this divine discontent, this disequilibrium, this state of inner tension [that is] the source of artistic energy."³⁵

The inner drive towards creativity, frequently truncated or denied by the demands of "getting on" in life--earning a living, raising a family, attending to the multiple chores of existence--can have a joyous resurgence in later life. As outer demands lessen, inner needs emerge. The resultant flowering of creativity is eloquently expressed by hundreds of the Elderlearning Survey respondents who seized the last question, "Describe an informal learning project that you have undertaken on your own," as an opportunity to write about what they are doing. A North Dakota woman is quilting--inventing new patterns and trying out variations on old ones. A retired salesman in Georgia has "gone back to black and white photography," setting up his own dark room and working on "soft focus" landscapes and "portraits of the folks who still live in the old cabins." Other respondents reported writing poetry, children's books, and short stories; making fanciful jewelry; trying out new pottery techniques; writing and producing plays for local drama societies; and acting, singing, sculpting, painting, or composing choral music.

For some Third Agers, creative pursuits are an extension of what they have been doing all along; for others, they are a return to what they did when younger until interrupted by the imperatives of making a living and nurturing a family. For them, growing older has meant a release and a return. Still others, older adults who had neither opportunity nor conscious desire to engage in creative activity when younger, have also seized the leisure of retirement to explore new facets of their interests and abilities. No one who has witnessed the intensity of concentration among older adults in writing, painting, and music classes will ever again maintain that creativity is the exclusive province of youth. These people are indeed "making their souls."

Wisdom is obviously more difficult to measure than creativity. Wisdom is developmental, an accretion of knowledge and understanding over time, and its "products" may be tangible (books, works of art, brilliant speeches) or intangible (deep understanding, inner peace, influence on the young, or the ability to teach, mediate, reconcile). To make value judgments about another's degree of "wisdom" is presumptuous and impossible. Nevertheless, new studies have shown that "even though the acquisition of wisdom is by no means guaranteed among elderly citizens, the individuals who are most wise will be disproportionately found among. . . older subjects."³⁶ Some studies suggest ways in which early creativity and late wisdom may converge "in the content of creative products that evince the acquisition of wisdom."³⁷

In any case, the time-honored myth of the wisdom of age is not only comforting, it seems to be compatible with reality.

1. As a friend remarked upon reading this, eventually even great wines turn to vinegar. Certainly the brain shares the ultimate mortality of the body it inhabits, but we are making the case for prolonging its vigor for as long as possible.

2. Bronte, The Longevity Factor, p. 56.

3. Bortz, p. 198.

4. Ibid., p. 201.

5. Ibid., quoting Jack Barchas of Stanford University, p. 198.

6. Ibid., p. 199.

7. "The Facade of Chronological Age" in Middle Age and Aging, edited by Bernice L. Neugarten (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), p. 241.

8. David A. Snowdon, Sharon K. Ostwald, and Robert L. Kane, "Education, Survival and Independence in Elderly Catholic Sisters, 1936-88," American Journal of Epidemiology (1989) 130, 999-1012. http://www.coa.uky.edu/nunnet.

9. Sharon M. Reynolds, "Aging with Grace: The School Sisters of Notre Dame Study," Odyssey (Winter/Spring 1993), 2-7. A 1996 report on an interim study within the framework of the "nun study" carries startling implications, which, if they prove valid, could totally change our understanding of organic brain deterioration. A comparison of autopsied nuns' brains with autobiographical material written by those nuns at an early age indicates that poorly developed writing skills may be predictive of late life Alzheimer's. Exactly what this means is not yet completely understood. http://www.coa.uky.edu/nunnet.

10. Kolata, C3.

11. Jane E. Brody, "Good Habits Outweigh Genes as Key to a Healthy Old Age," New York Times, February 28, 1996, C9.

12. Ibid.

13. Bortz, p. 142.

14. Noreen L. Goggin and George E. Stelmach, "Age-Related Deficits in Cognitive-Motor Skills in Aging and Cognition: Mental Processes, Self-Awareness and Interventions, edited by Eugene A. Lovelace (Amsterdam: North Holland Press, 1990), p. 152.

15. Bortz, p. 206.

16. D.W. Molloy, D.A. Beerschoten, M.J. Borrie, R.G. Crilly, and R.D.T. Cape, "Acute Effects of Exercise on Neuropsychological Function in Elderly Subjects," Journal of the American Geriatric Society, 36,1 (January 1988), 29-33.

17. Louise Clarkson-Smith and Alan A. Hartley, "Relationships Between Physical Exercise and Cognitive Abilities in Older Adults," Psychology and Aging, 4,2 (June 1989), 183-89.

18. M.J. Stones and D. Dawe, "Acute Exercise Facilitates Semantically-Cued Memory in Nursing Home Residents," Journal of the American Geriatric Society, 41 (1993), 531-34.

19. Bortz, p. 207.

20. Paul J. Jacques and Karen M. Riggs, "B Vitamins as Risk Factors for Age-Related Diseases," Nutritional Assessment of Elderly Populations: Measure and Function, edited by Irwin H. Rosenberg (New York: Raven Press, 1995), p. 234.

21. Ibid, p. 246.

22. "Where's the Vitamin E?" U.S. News and World Report, June 10, 1996, 102.

23. Stones and Dawe, pp. 531-34.

24. Sherry L. Willis, "Current Issues in Cognitive Training Research" in Aging and Cognition: Mental Processes, Self-Awareness and Interventions, edited by Eugene A. Lovelace (Amsterdam: North-Holland Press, 1990). pp. 263-280.

25. Ibid.

26. Ibid., p. 276.

27. Harry R. Moody, "Education in an Aging Society," Daedalus, 115, 1 (Winter 1986), 208.

28. Brody, C9.

29. Ibid.

30. Keats died at 26 and Mozart at 35. We can only speculate to what extent their art might have been enriched and deepened with age.

31. Dean Keith Simonton, "Creativity and Wisdom in Aging" in Columbia Retirement Handbook, edited by Abraham Monk (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), p. 320.

32. Ibid.

33. Ibid., p. 323.

34. May Sarton, "A Literary Perspective," Perspectives on Aging: Exploding the Myths, edited by Priscilla W. Johnston (Ballinger Publishing Co., 1981), pp. 122-23.

35. Ibid., pp. 117-18.

36. Simonton, p. 325.

37. Ibid., p. 326.