Women are now spending fewer years with cognitive impairment but more years with disability compared to 20 years ago. We're living longer but senior years are still marked by declines in physical well-being even as mental acumen remains better than in decades past. In most developed countries worldwide life expectancy is increasing at the rate of at least two years every decade, and, for life expectancy at age 60, shows no sign of slowing down. 

Scholars writing in The Lancet have shown that between 1991 and 2011 women's life expectancy at age 65 increased by 3.6 years but they identified that the female body doesn't age as well as its mind. Women lived approximately 2.5 months less with moderate or severe cognitive impairment and six months fewer with mild cognitive impairment, such as problems with memory and thinking. However, this is balanced by the fact that at age 65 females now spend around seven months more with moderate or severe disability and 2.5 years more with mild disability.

Meanwhile, overall men's life expectancy increased by 4.5 years but they had only 1.3 years more with mild disability and there was no increase in the years spent with moderate or severe disability, or mild or worse cognitive impairment.

Professor Carol Jagger, from Newcastle University's Institute for Ageing, led the analysis of the research  and said, "The big unanswered question is whether our extra years of life are healthy ones and the aim of our research was to investigate how health expectancies at age 65 years and over changed between 1991 and 2011. One possibility for the increased years women are living with mild disability might be the rise in obesity levels over the decades, but there may also be particular conditions, or just more multiple diseases, which are a feature of very old age."

The research team compared two rounds of the Cognitive Function and Ageing Study, done in England in 1991 and 2011.

Health expectancy was measured in three ways: self-perceived health, life without disability, and time free from cognitive impairment. For the study a total of 7,635 people aged 65 and over were analysed in Newcastle, Cambridge and Nottingham.

Analysis of the Health Survey for England for those aged 65+ over a similar time period showed problems with vision and hearing did not account for increases in disability.

Nevertheless, stability in self-care activities, like cooking, and increases in mobility limitations, such as walking 200 yards and climbing stairs, may contribute to gains in mild disability.

Newcastle University's Institute for Ageing held a conference December 8, which focused on 'The economic and social impact of ageing' - Professor Jagger opened the event.