Opinion Paper: A Cognitive-cultural Segregation and the Three Stages of Aging

There is no doubt that the world is divided and unequal, mostly with respect to wealth. However, the true obstacle preventing the progress of humanity is not the divide between the rich and the poor. It is the divide between the cognitive and the physical. Apart from the social and ethical issues associated with this, there are also medical ones. The implications of this divide have direct relevance to aging, both in research and in the clinical sense. We cannot simply apply the same ‘healthy aging’ guidelines to everybody, but we need to establish if our approach is specifically suited to the individual. Our research endeavours need to have this division in focus. In this Opinion paper I describe three separate groups of humanity, which are divided, not by economic criteria, but by a worldview of intellectual creativity. Each arbitrary group has its own health priorities. If we overlook these priorities we may, at best, give the wrong advice to our patients, or at worst waste resources and exacerbate the rate of age-related degeneration in many individuals. As our society becomes more reliant on technology, what is now considered ‘healthy’ may not be so, for many millions of people.