FACTS

Changes that occur during aging include:

1. Muscular strength and range of joint movement: In general, people lose approximately 15 to 20% of their strength from the ages of 30 to 60.
2. As we age, the body loses some ‘range of motion’ and flexibility.
3. Cardiovascular and respiratory systems: The ability of the heart, lungs and circulatory system to carry oxygen decreases. Between the age of 30 and 65, the functional breathing capacity can reduce by 40%.
4. Sleep Regulation: As we age, our body is not able to regulate sleep as well as it used to. How long a person sleeps, and how well they sleep, can additionally be disrupted by changing work hours or by light and noise.
5. Vision: Vision changes with age. We will notice we cannot see or read from certain distances as well as we used to. This reduction in the “amplitude of accommodation” (the ability to see or adjust focus in certain distance ranges) is normal and is usually corrected with prescription glasses.
6. Auditory (Hearing): Hearing also changes. Most often, this change is noticed as the inability to listen to a particular voice or sound in a noisy environment.

STATS

• According to data from the B.L.S. , in 2020, 24% of workers were 55 or older – up from 19% a decade earlier.
• The most recent data available from BLS shows that fatal injuries among workers 55 and older increased 8% from 2018 to 2019. The 2,005 deaths in 2019 represent “the largest number recorded for this age group,” the agency says. That figure fell 13.9% to 1,727 in 2020.
• In 2020, workers ages 55-64 had a fatal injury rate of 4.4 per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers, while those 65 and older had a rate of 8.6, according to BLS. Both of those rates were significantly higher than that for all workers, at 3.4.
• A higher number of workplace deaths among older workers as some baby boomers are continuing to work past the traditional retirement age of 65.
• By 2024, the federal government expects older workers will make up 25 % of the U.S. labor market.
• 44 % of older workers say their job required manual labor for a large portion of the time they work.
• 36 % said that their current age made it more difficult to perform physical work than when they were younger.
• 38,200 older workers died because of a workplace injury. This figure represents 26 % of the total number of fatal occupational injuries incurred by all workers during that time.