…Are Smarter

by Dr. Bill Thomas

We are witnessing the emergence of a new old age. It is an undiscovered country whose broadest contours are only just beginning to come into view…

Here is a quick take on an article recently published in the

Senior moments notwithstanding, elderly people are smarter today than they were less than a generation ago, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that when it comes to mental acuity, 74 is the new 59.

They compared performances on a battery of intelligence tests between a group of contemporary 74-year-olds and another group of people who took the tests 16 years earlier, when they were also 74.

The latter-day septuagenarians performed better on the tests across the board.

In fact, the average performance of a contemporary 74-year-old was closer to someone 15 years younger in the earlier testing group, researcher Elizabeth M. Zelinski, PhD, tells WebMD.

Zelinski is a professor of gerontology and psychology at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

“These findings have very interesting implications for the future, especially in terms of employment,” she says. “As a group, older people are more mentally able to keep working beyond retirement age today.”