Maintaining health and well-being: overcoming barriers to healthy ageing

This chapter discusses the various aspects of health and well-being in later life that were studied by fourteen different NDA projects. The first part of this chapter examines some of the key concepts in this field, including quality of life and subjective well-being. It focuses on the barriers to healthy ageing and good quality of life in old age. These include economic barriers, physiological effects, limits to mobility, barriers to paid employment, and psychosocial barriers. The second half of the chapter looks at interventions to support well-being and healthy ageing. Drawing on the extensive testing of models by the NDA projects, the chapter focuses on six different types of intervention: financial, pharmacological, physical (exercise), environmental (blue light and OWL), community music making, and engagement with art.