At what age were your parents when you started to notice them really slowing down?

My parents both died at 94. As for changes, there seemed to be a few plateaus over time, but both were reasonable active until their mid '80s.

I'm nearly 72. You'd have to ask my kids about noticeable changes, but I'm still running 30-35 miles a week (4 or five days) and cycling other days. I keep my mind active by working part time for my law firm, reading, and writing a blog. I'm hoping that staying active will be beneficial.

I'm beginning to see a sharp divergence in my mother and father who are 64 and 65 respectively.

Only difference between mom of 15 years ago and mom now seems to be gray hair. She walks everyday, eats a pretty clean diet, and still works 35 hours a week for the library which lets her stay active in the community. Very social and knows a ton about the goings-on of our county.

My dad retired at 62 and has gotten fat as hell and is increasingly belligerent+forgetful. His diet was always significantly worse than my mom's as he ate stuff like lunch meat daily and was a 1-2 cocktails a night guy. He has done nothing with retirement yet, just spends all day watching TV and getting worked up. I honestly think one of the reasons my mom hasn't retired yet is because she doesn't want to be home with him all day. I know on my end I'm always giving him a wide berth when I visit because it seems like he's always angry and has a need to be right about things that wasn't there before.

I'm concerned about the future because I don't really want to take care of him which is a horrible ugly thought but it's there.

My dad died of Alz at 72, and had a slow decline over 10 years before then ... So I don't really share his experience, as I think his was really out of the ordinary. What I will note is he had sleep apnea most of his adult life, which I contributed greatly to his degenerative state. If you have sleep apnea, fix it.

My mom is 72. She's had two knee replacements and has arthritis, but she walks 1-2 hours daily and does her workout videos several times a week. She's very social and mostly of sound mind. I do think she needs to take in more protein, but she's fearful of gaining weight, which is annoying because she needs to be worrying about other markers like high blood pressure, cholesterol, etc. She eats like crap because she's skinny.

She's also incredibly negative. Even though she has plenty of money and is generally healthy, she has wealthier and healther friends. So having a good attitude I think also goes a long way to having a good life in old age. To be fair, my younger sister also whines about what other people have that she doesn't, so maybe it's genetic.

I'd say when my dad was about 67 or 68 I realized that some hikes we used to do were beyond his limit. Guessing he's still way better than average for someone his age (now mid 70s), but he seemed like superman well into his 60s.

I'd say 70s is when relatively minor deficits (arthritis, foot neuropathy, compromised balance) begin to accumulate, and accelerate a person's decline; but the gait issue may be something specific enough to follow up on.

Like the OP, I lived cross-country from my parents when they were in their 80s, which was during the height of the pandemic. Did not see them for ~3 years, though we spoke 2-3x/week by phone. I could discern that they were slowing down cognitively-- difficulty expressing themselves, struggling to find specific words (both high-frequency words and more specific terms), muddling facts, difficulty maintaining conversation thread, difficulty maintaining attention. But what I could not get an accurate sense for was the physical decline-- greatly diminished strength and stamina, inability to walk without assistance, inability to stand up from a chair without assistance, incontinence.

My mother died suddenly at 85. On the phone, she seemed to be the sharper of the two; but talking with my father afterward, I realize that there she experienced more confusion and disorientation than was apparent by phone.

My father is 90 (lifetime non-drinker, quit smoking at 35, 25-year cancer surviror). I relocated to live with him 2 years ago. I was struck by his physical decline when I moved back to live with him. He does not hear or see well (despite hearing aids / glasses), and his short-term memory is rapidly declining. He was never athletic, but always physically active--gardening, landscaping, walking his dog, but those things are beyond his capacity at this point because of compromised balance, strength, and stamina. He looks physically robust enough, but living with him 24/7 for the last 2 years, his deficits are obvious. On the plus side, he has enthusiastically embraced the iPad, and reads more and more widely about current events than he ever did before.

Bottom line, your parents' health may be difficult to monitor meanlngfullly from cross country. Barring a health catastrophe, their ability to live independently will be a function of having each other for support; having a social support network (friends, church, volunteer activities) that keeps them socially engaged; and access and willingness to access healthcare.

Previous poster(s)have posited a later-life health trajectory based on genetics, lifestyle, and diet. This resonates strongly with what I'm observing with my father. His parents (born +/- 1900) lived into their 80s, without a lot of medical interventions; both of his sisters lived past 90, so genetics are probably in his favor. Also in his favor, maintaining a physically active (if not 'athletic') lifestyle. His diet, on the other hand, has not been that great-- lots of processed foods, lots of 'convenience foods', lots of restaurant food / fast food, lots of sweets, lots of red meat, lots of fried food. But at his last medical checkup the doctor said (in my presence): "Eat whatever you want, and as much of it as you want. At 90, you're not going to die of high cholesterol."

Contrasted with my mother: history of family longevity, same crappy diet, zero physical activity. The lack of physical activity caught up with her in her mid-80s. When she needed to be active most, she couldn't.

To reiterate: You do what you can. It's probably worth expending some mental energy on the gait issue, to the extent that your father is willing and able. Beyond that, aging takes its own trajectory.

Good on you for moving in with your father.