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News
LSU Life Course and Aging Center seeks secrets to "aging successfully"
Somewhere in Louisiana, there is a man in his 80s jogging or planning
an afternoon tennis match. Somewhere else in the state,
there is a man in his 80s who is bedridden, tended to
by a nurse or family members.
How is one elderly man able to live an active lifestyle,
while another his age is overwhelmed by the effects
of time? Researchers in LSU's new Life Course and Aging
Center are seeking the answer to this and many other
questions.
According to some government projections, the number
of U.S. residents over the age of 65 will rise to 70.3
million by the year 2030, more than twice their number
in 2000. Similar growth is predicted for Louisiana,
with the state's 65-and-over population almost doubling
by 2025.
With these growing numbers comes a need to better understand
the aging process in all its aspects -- physical, mental
and emotional -- in order to ensure the "successful
aging" of the population. That's why the diverse LSU
faculty that make up the Life Course and Aging Center
are conducting major research projects on the aging
process, from birth through the later years of life.
The Life Course and Aging Center is a multidisciplinary
effort of faculty from a number of LSU departments and
campuses. It was officially approved by the Board of
Regents over the summer, but the effort to form the
center and the research being conducted by its members
have been going on for some time.
Katie Cherry, chair of LSU's Department of Psychology
and a leader in the drive to form the Center, is a specialist
in cognitive aging, particularly memory and related
processes in older adults. She is also one of the primary
investigators in a major five-year study called the
"Multidisciplinary Study of Longevity and Healthy Aging
in the Louisiana Population" or, simply, the "Louisiana
Healthy Aging Study." The study is supported by a $4.1
million Health Excellence Fund grant from the Board
of Regents and is headed up by Dr. S. Michal Jazwinski
of the LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans.
The study began with Jazwinski, who has been involved
in aging research for almost two decades. Jazwinski
was concentrating on the role of genes in longevity
and working with subjects in New Orleans when he realized
that the issue needed to be examined from a variety
of angles -- molecular, physiological, psychological
and so on. That's when Cherry, LSU Kinesiology Associate
Professor Robert Wood, LSU Biological Sciences Professor
Mark Batzer and others involved in the center entered
the picture.
The study involves testing some 780 subjects over a
five-year period, with 260 over the age of 90. It is
a population-based study, meaning that the subjects
represent a random sampling of the entire population
in a 12-parish area within a 40-mile radius of Baton
Rouge.
The subjects receive a battery of tests conducted at
the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge,
including blood work, physical function tests, and cognitive
measurements. After this stage, there are follow-up
visits at home for those over 90.
"We're trying to find what characteristics have allowed
these people to live so long," said Cherry. "We hope
to find some aspects of their metabolisms or lives that
have predisposed them to live so long."
To this end, each researcher concentrates on their specific
area. For instance, Cherry conducts the tests to measure
cognitive ability, while Wood works to assess the functional
abilities in a quantitative way. In order for Wood to
assess the elderly participants, he has them conduct
tasks they would encounter during daily living -- emptying
a load of laundry, carrying grocery bags a certain distance.
"We're already seeing interesting trends, however, before
we make any definitive statements, we need to test additional
subjects," said Jazwinski. "We are establishing grounds
for the next stages (of the study) and testing new hypotheses.
It's an ongoing process that, if successful, will continue
for quite some time." Despite the massive scope and
importance of the Louisiana Healthy Aging Study, Cherry
and the others are quick to point out that the center
is involved in a great deal of additional research.
"We have expertise at the other end of the lifespan
as well -- early childhood development," Cherry explained.
"The Life Course and Aging Center is sincerely what
it says: development through all stages, infant to early
childhood to teens and adults."
For instance, she said, Jill Suitor, a professor in
LSU's Department of Sociology, has a grant of more than
$1 million from the National Institute on Aging to study
parent-adult child relationships. This project, which
is housed at LSU, is in collaboration with Karl Pillemer,
a professor in the Department of Human Development at
Cornell University.
In addition, Pam Monroe, Carville Professor of Human
Ecology and Associate Dean of the Graduate School at
LSU, is studying young and middle-aged women living
in poverty and their children. She is concentrating
on women and children in rural areas and, with the aid
of several grants, examining how social policies --
particularly welfare reform -- are affecting them across
the life span. Monroe has been collecting data on women
around the state since 1996 and worked with the state
Department of Social Services on a welfare evaluation
project.
"We are all very committed to the life course perspective,"
said Monroe. "It reminds us that an older person doesn't
get to be who they are overnight. They have been 'becoming'
that since childhood and it's a culmination of socioeconomic
status, genetics, health, well-being and environment
across the life span."
For more information on the Life Course and Aging Center
at LSU, visit the Web site at http://www.lsuagingstudies.com
or contact Katie Cherry at 225-578-4099 or pskatie@lsu.edu.
Other Useful Websites
United States Senate
Special Committee on Aging
Newsletter
 The Life Course and Aging Center publishes a newsletter describing center activities during the past year. The 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, and 2001 newsletters are available for download (PDF format).
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