Life at 85 and 92: A Qualitative Longitudinal Study of How the Oldest Old Experience and Adjust to the Increasing Uncertainty of Existence

Abstract

This qualitative longitudinal study investigated how life was experienced by the participants at the ages of eighty-five ( n = 129) and by those who survived to become ninety-two ( n = 41) seven years later. In-depth interviews were used and seven patterns of adjustment emerged from the analysis at the age of eighty-five ranging from Self-realization to Withdrawal. This heterogeneity remained at the age of ninety-two but the increased weakening of the body and the shortened time perspective that all participants now experienced had somewhat changed the characteristics of the categories. These challenges also led to greater use of cognitive strategies of adjustment at ninety-two like taking one day at a time, substitution, losing interest in that which one could not do any longer, and an increase of the dialectical balancing of good and bad life events to reach a synthesis one could accept.