Your health: Early retirement may not help your health

Early retirement may be kiss of death

Although many people retire because of poor health, a new study suggests working later in life, even in spite of poor health, may lower the risk of death from any cause, UPI reports.

Regardless of health status, people who retired at least one year after age 65 had a lower risk of death, researchers at Oregon State University found in a large study of adults.

Other studies have shown the importance of activity — exercise, socialization or continuing to work — to maintaining cognitive and physical ability.

The researchers report many people who continued to work were in better shape in many ways that can also affect their length of life, but continuing to work has the potential to benefit everybody, they said.

“The healthy group is generally more advantaged in terms of education, wealth, health behaviors and lifestyle, but taking all of those issues into account, the pattern still remained,” said Dr. Robert Stawski, an associate professor at Oregon State University. “The findings seem to indicate that people who remain active and engaged gain a benefit from that.”

Keep your health care directives current

If you decide to change something in your living will or health care power of attorney, the best thing to do is create a new one, the Harvard Medical School advises.

Once the new document is signed and dated in front of appropriate witnesses — and notarized, if necessary — it supersedes your old directive.

The American Bar Association Commission on Law and Aging suggests that you re-examine your health care wishes whenever any of the following “five d's” occurs:

Decade: When you start each new decade of your life.

Death: When you experience the death of a loved one.

Divorce: When you experience a divorce or other major family change. (In many states, a divorce automatically revokes the authority of a spouse who had been named as agent.)

Diagnosis: When you are diagnosed with a serious medical problem.

Decline: When you experience a significant decline or deterioration from an existing health condition, especially when it diminishes your ability to live independently.