Late Adulthood
"Wisdom doesn't automatically come with old age. Nothing does - except wrinkles. It's true, some wines improve with age. But only if the grapes were good in the first place."
~Abigail Van Buren
Late adulthood stretches from age 60 to the end of the life span. People are becoming aware of the developments, declines, and changes of this stage of life because the numbers of adults over the age of 65 have increased 12-fold to almost 34 million, with people over the age of 65 comprising 13% of the current U.S. population. This huge increase is due to the fact that life expectancy in most industrialized countries has almost doubled in the last century. For this reason and various others, understanding the changes and developments of late adulthood is extremely important in taking care of our growing numbers of elders in society.