Presbyopia: farsightedness caused by loss of elasticity of the lens of the eye. This makes it hard to read your cell phone’s screen, a magazine, or clearly see your car’s dashboard.
Osteoarthritis: the wearing down of joint cartilage. This is especially accelerated in the weight-bearing joints (spine, hips, knees, ankles, feet) that occurs gradually and worsens over time. Osteoarthritis causes stiffness (when trying to move from a resting position) and pain (with activity) in joints.
Nocturia: needing to wake up from sleep in order to empty the bladder. This breaks up the naturally restorative sleep patterns.
Sarcopenia, age-related: involuntary loss of muscle bulk, and therefore loss of muscle strength. Affects everything from not being able to open up tight jar lids to an increased risk of falling. Falls may lead to fractures of the wrists, forearms, ribs, hips and vertebrae. Falls increase the risk of a premature death.
High frequency hearing loss: age-related and noise exposure-related loss of being able to hear the higher pitches of sounds. Can contribute to feelings of isolation due to lack of participation in conversations. Often this hearing loss is related to loss of speech discrimination.
Loss of speech discrimination: the ability to understand speech in quiet as well as in noisy environments. This loss makes it hard to hear, and understand, what is being said if there is significant background noise, such as multiple people speaking or yelling around a dinner table, in a restaurant, or at a sporting event.
Tinnitus: a subjective ringing, buzzing, humming, chirping, or clicking sound in one’s head/ears. Often is associated with high frequency hearing loss. May cause significant increase in anxiety. Can be very distracting, causing difficulty focusing, concentrating, as well as difficulty in trying to drop off to sleep.
Loss of physical stamina. A natural, age related, decrease in maximum cardiac output and maximum pulmonary function. This can be exacerbated by lack of exercise and lack of activity. This loss makes it harder to keep up with active pets as well as fast moving grandchildren.
Loss of subcutaneous fat. Age-related loss of fat from under the skin, increases skin wrinkles, increases risk of skin tearing easily and sets us up for easy bruising ( broken and bleeding blood vessels).
Charles Tadros, M.D.
September 10, 2021
Saint Louis, Missouri