TY - JOUR
T1 - Inquiry into terminal decline
T2 - Five objectives for future study
AU - Gerstorf, Denis
AU - Ram, Nilam
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support provided by the National Institute on Aging grants RC1-AG035645, R21-AG032379, and R21-AG033109; the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin; and the Penn State Children, Youth, and Families Consortium. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funding agencies.
PY - 2013/10
Y1 - 2013/10
N2 - Notions of terminal decline propose that late-life change is primarily driven by processes closely tied to pathology and mortality rather than chronological age. We use the rationales of longitudinal research as outlined by Baltes and Nesselroade (Baltes, P., & Nesselroade, J. [1979]. History and rationale of longitudinal research. In J. R. Nesselroade & P. Baltes (Eds.), Longitudinal research in the study of behavior and development [pp. 1-39]. San Diego, CA: Academic Press) as a framework for organizing research on terminal decline. In doing so, we note that there are relatively robust descriptions of terminal decline across a variety of different domains, as well as the extent of interindividual differences in the levels of function, rates of change, and timing of terminal decline (research rationales 1 and 2). However, there is much more to learn about the interrelations among change in different domains, the underlying mechanisms of change, and the factors that contribute to interindividual differences in change (research rationales 3-5). Needed are new study designs and analytical models that better address the structural, temporal, and causal interrelations that contribute to and protect against terminal decline.
AB - Notions of terminal decline propose that late-life change is primarily driven by processes closely tied to pathology and mortality rather than chronological age. We use the rationales of longitudinal research as outlined by Baltes and Nesselroade (Baltes, P., & Nesselroade, J. [1979]. History and rationale of longitudinal research. In J. R. Nesselroade & P. Baltes (Eds.), Longitudinal research in the study of behavior and development [pp. 1-39]. San Diego, CA: Academic Press) as a framework for organizing research on terminal decline. In doing so, we note that there are relatively robust descriptions of terminal decline across a variety of different domains, as well as the extent of interindividual differences in the levels of function, rates of change, and timing of terminal decline (research rationales 1 and 2). However, there is much more to learn about the interrelations among change in different domains, the underlying mechanisms of change, and the factors that contribute to interindividual differences in change (research rationales 3-5). Needed are new study designs and analytical models that better address the structural, temporal, and causal interrelations that contribute to and protect against terminal decline.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84888620703&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84888620703&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1093/geront/gnt046
DO - 10.1093/geront/gnt046
M3 - Article
C2 - 23704220
AN - SCOPUS:84888620703
SN - 0016-9013
VL - 53
SP - 727
EP - 737
JO - Gerontologist
JF - Gerontologist
IS - 5
ER -