This week's interview excerpt: On aging

There’s some good news about aging. Next week, we’ll be featuring a story about a UC San Diego study, which found that despite physical ailments, older adults seem to consistently get happier over time. We interviewed Dr. Dilip Jeste about their work, which contradicts the conventional notions that aging is pretty much all ‘gloom and doom’. In this excerpt from our interview with Jeste, he describes what makes their study different.

“Usually, when people mention aging, they are thinking about physical aging, that's the only component that figures in ministries of aging, but aging is multidimensional. Physical health is one dimension. Another dimension is cognitive function, or cognitive health. So, that is what is being studied when we are looking at people with Alzheimer's Disease or other dementias. But the component of aging that is least studied is the psychosocial component of aging. In other words, what happens to the wellbeing, happiness, satisfaction, emotions, social activi