Marital Status and Living Arrangements
Most elderly people in the United States under the age of 85 are married and living with their spouse. Not surprisingly, because women in general have a longer life expectancy, elderly men are twice as likely to be married as are elderly women. Conversely, widowhood is much more common among elderly women.
Elderly people who live alone, often having lost a spouse, usually prefer to remain independent and continue living alone as long as their health and finances allow it. Many who live alone have families or friends nearby, and about three in five have lived in the same place for 10 years or more.

Life Expectancy
The maximum life span is the theoretical, longest length of life, excluding premature "unnatural" death. Life expectancy is defined as the average number of additional years of life that is expected for a member of a population. It can be a useful predictor of actual lifespan for a given individual. People almost always die of disease or accident before they reach their biologic limit.
The average life expectancy in the United States is currently highest for white women, followed by black women, white men, and black men. On average, women live longer than men, and whites live longer than blacks. Based on 1996 statistics, women who live until age 65 can, on average, expect to live to age 84. Those who live to age 85 can expect to live to age 92. The number of people living to 100 in the United States is difficult to estimate, but their numbers are certainly growing. For people born in 1899, the odds of living to 100 were 400 to 1. However, for people born in 1980, the odds improved substantially to 87 to 1.

Multiple Diseases: The likelihood of having more than one disease also increases as we age. Among people aged 65 and older, 30% have three or more chronic diseases. Having more than one disease complicates care in several ways. Sudden change or illness in one body system may stress another body system, making the interpretation of symptoms more complex. For example, it is more difficult to evaluate mental confusion in someone who also has a fever caused by pneumonia. Sometime, the symptoms of one disease may hide those of another. For example, someone who has arthritis may never be physically active enough to show symptoms of heart disease, making the heart disease difficult to recognize.

Disability and (ADL) Activities of Daily Living
The word function, as used in the health field, refers to your ability to manage your daily routine–a critical issue for all of us. Manual ability in particular is closely associated with the ability to live independently. A person’s manual ability reflects the skills necessary to perform basic activities of daily living (ADLs) and is helpful in making decisions related to what type of assistance, if any, is needed. This means that an evaluation of your functional abilities can be useful in defining certain health needs. With Evolutionary Lifestyle Home Design™, you have the ability to modify your home using the principals of Universal design in a stylish way to fit those changes. It can be fashionably designed and adapted, so you and your family can live more independently, safely, and efficiently, for the way you want or need to live, in your home for life..

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