What if there were a way to determine how well someone was aging — without focusing on their ailments or diseases?
That’s the idea behind intrinsic capacity, a holistic measure that shifts the focus from treating individual diseases to tracking a person’s overall functional health, vitality and mental acuity.
The World Health Organization defines intrinsic capacity as “the composite of all the physical and mental capabilities that an individual can draw on at any point in time.”
Dr. John Beard, a professor of productive aging who helped develop the concept, told The New York Times that “‘Intrinsic’ means all those attributes that you can attribute to the individual from the skin in,” whereas “‘capacity’ is looking at their functioning.”
While the concept can’t be tested by doctors just yet, medical experts hope that intrinsic capacity will one day be used to help patients, especially older ones, track their health and well-being.
Intrinsic capacity was officially defined in 2015 as part of WHO’s healthy aging initiative. The initiative looks to shift the focus on aging from disease and frailty toward maintaining function as people age.
Experts told the Times that a person’s intrinsic capability score is based on five categories: cognition, locomotion (strength and mobility), sensory capacity (vision and hearing), psychological well-being and vitality (overall energy levels and resilience to stressors).
Some research has proven that intrinsic capacity correlates with older adults’ risk of disability and mortality, though experts say the real value would be following one’s intrinsic capacity over time.
Experts say this is something to focus on over time so that physicians can identify any signs of decline before it’s too late.
Even when doctors look at healthy adults without diseases, they can “still detect changes in capacity,” Beard said.
“And that allows you to start thinking about, well, OK, what’s making people’s capacity different, and how can we intervene much earlier to try and prevent the later life declines?
Research surrounding intrinsic capacity is still in the early stages and being studied in clinical trials, including in France, where older adults regularly fill out a survey to assess their intrinsic capacity and receive medical recommendations based on the score.
If a person’s score starts to fall, they are referred to a doctor for follow-up testing and treatment.
Medical experts are still looking to see for certain if intervening early as a result of someone’s intrinsic capacity score would lead to greater life expectancy — but many are hopeful.
“We expect it will,” David Furman, a professor at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, told the Times. Furman noted, however, “but we don’t have the data yet.”