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Elders increasingly are living past age 90, raising concerns that their illnesses and infirmities will burden society. However, data are scarce regarding the health status of nonagenarians. To explore this issue, researchers surveyed nonagenarians in two Danish cohorts born 10 years apart. In 1998, 2262 Danish residents who were born in Denmark in 1905 were interviewed (directly or by proxy) and underwent physical and cognitive tests. Twelve years later, investigators used the same methods to survey 1584 Danish residents born in Denmark in 1915.
Although the 1915 cohort was about 2 years older than the 1905 cohort when it was studied (mean age, 95 vs. 93), members of the 1915 cohort scored significantly higher on the Mini-Mental State Examin…