USPOREDBA BIOMEDICINSKOGA I ALTERNATIVNOGA MODELA USPJEŠNOGA STARENJA
THE COMPARISON OF THE BIOMEDICAL AND THE ALTERNATIVE MODEL OF SUCCESSFUL AGING

Summary/Abstract: One of the most prominent models of successful aging (Rowe and Kahn, 1997) is based on three criteria: freedom from disease, high physical and cognitive functioning, and active engagement with life. Research has shown that the application of this model on very old people results in a substantially decreased number of successful agers. So recent studies are oriented toward finding alternative criteria in order to extend the concept of successful aging and make it more applicable on the very old. Using data collected on a sample of 479 older subjects, 60 to 95 years old, we compared two models of successful aging, namely the biomedical and the alternative model (the latter using the following criteria: good subjective health, perception of good financial status and high level of happiness). The criteria of the alternative model were met by 19.4 % of the older subjects, while the application of the criteria of Rowe and Kahn’s model resulted in a substantially lower percentage of successful agers (7.9 %) in the same sample. In the next step of the analysis, we compared two extreme groups (successful and unsuccessful agers), finding out that there were no significant age and sex differences 537 between them.

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