“Young man,” I said, “you don’t have cataract, your lively manner and eyes belie your real age. Mr Tom smiled, while protesting at the same time, “How dare you call a 64-year-old like me a young man? Anyway, thanks for the compliments.”
“How lucky he is,” I thought to myself. At 64, there was almost complete absence of certain features of old age I had expected to see. He had walked briskly into my office. I had expected to see grey or white hair, facial wrinkles, poor eyesight and bagginess of the lower eyelids. Instead, I saw a man with dark, shinning hair, no wrinkles on his face, agile and moderately restless.
In those days of my childhood, a man of 50 years of age would be considered an old man. I remember making a comment many years ago, on seeing an obituary of a 55-year-old. I had expressed a sigh of relief that it wasn’t the death of a younger person that was being announced. “Thank God, he is an old man,” I said.
My father overheard my comment and expressed a feeling of disgust. “I am about the same age as this man, is this what you would say if I were to die now? So, this is what you would say if it was me?” I took a quick glance at him and felt that he wasn’t old enough to die. He died much later just before his 90th year.
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This prompted me to ask the question, “Who is an old man?” Mr Tom smiled, and asked in return, “What is old age?” “Old age,” I said, “refers to ages nearing or surpassing the life expectancy of human beings – in short the end of the human cycle.” Shakespeare describe the cycle as “Seven Ages of Man.” “Have you read the recent WHO of the age cycle?” I asked? “No,” he replied.
“The only one I know is based on the Friendly Societies Act (1875) in Britain, which the world seemed to have adopted. ‘Old’ was defined by the age of 50,” he responded. I told him that life expectancy had increased rapidly since then. It started to increase in the early industrialised countries while it stayed low in the rest of the world. It increased further in America, Europe and parts of Asia.
The terms ‘seniors’ or senior citizens’ are used to describe old people by Americans. I remember at 60, I was handed a special card by the American Academy of Ophthalmology welcoming me to the Seniors Club! Thus, Old age is not a definite biological stage and varies culturally and historically. Remember it depends on the life expectancy of the community in which one lives.
I called Mr Tom’s attention to the recent WHO criteria for classifying human age as follow: zero to 17 years old: underage; 18 to 65 years old: the youth/young people; 66 to 79 years old: middle-aged; 80 to 99 years old: elderly/senior; 100+ years old: long-lived elderly.
“Mr. Tom, would you now agree with me that you are a young man?” I asked gleefully with the satisfaction of having won the argument. “Not quite,” he exclaimed, “You did say that the definition of old age varied according to the life expectancy of the society in which we live. What is the life expectancy of Nigerians living in Nigeria?” I scratched my head. I have met my match! “I can’t really remember the latest figure but a few years ago it was said to be about 50 years,” I said.
“This is not much different from the latest figures,” Mr Tom replied and added, According to the latest WHO data published in 2017, life expectancy in Nigeria is: Male 53.4, female 55.6 and total life expectancy is 54.5. This places Nigeria in 177th position in World Life Expectancy ranking. Therefore Dr Ben, you dare not call me a young man again! I have lived 10 years over the life span of the average Nigerian!”
I was still pondering how Mr Tom knew so much about this topic. He read my mind. “I studied actuary science,” he announced and went on to explain that an Actuary is a business professional who analyses the financial consequences of risk. Actuaries use mathematics, statistics, and financial theory to study uncertain future events such as life expectancy which of great concern to insurance and pension programmes.
Mr Tom has maintained a very good score card on all three criteria for judging age. He was not only looking much younger than his age, his mental status was excellent, and his eyes were like that of a 40-year old. My projection was that he was unlikely to develop cataract or any age-related eye problem until about 75 years of age.
Age is a factor in the development of Glaucoma which is said to occur at an earlier age in Africans than in Caucasians. I was astounded by Mr Tom’s statement that, “if the sun rises very early in one part of the world, it would also set very early in that part of the world. The import of his statement is that those who develop glaucoma are relatively older people when our life expectancy is considered!
I really never gave it a thought until now.
and then