Active, successful, and healthy ageing: A new life for older adults

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to study active ageing from the multiple theoretical models dating from the 1950s and 1960s, when the concepts active, healthy, successful ageing, adaptation theory and other similar terms were coined. It was in the United States that pioneers like Rowe and Kahn (1987,1977) developed this concept, taking three main ideas as the backbone: low probability of illness, high cognitive ability and participation in life. Their work was continued by Havighurst and Albrecht (1954), among others. The psychologists Rie, Löckenff and Carstensenc (2002) state that successful ageing and the elderly are theoretically related notions which share many perspectives and meanings. Active ageing is a dynamic concept, an answer to the loss of relations proclaimed by the decoupling theory (Cumming and Henry, 1961), when people retired from their working life and started their stage of retirement.