De Tornyay Center to open with lecture on living to 100

To celebrate the formal opening of the de Tornyay Center on Healthy Aging, the School of Nursing will host a lecture and book-signing by the authors of Living to 100: Lessons in Living to Your Maximum Potential at Any Age.

The lecture, by Dr. Thomas T. Perl and Margery Hutter Silver of Harvard Medical School, will be held at 2:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 7, in Hogness Auditorium at the Health Sciences Center. A reception will follow.

Living to 100, published by Basic Books in April 1999, presents a hopeful vision of longevity, based on the New England Centenarian Study, the most extensive medical and psychological study of America’s oldest old. The study finds that the key to preserving health and vitality lies not in learning how people stay young, but in understanding how they age well.

Information on the book and the study is available online at http://www.livingto100.com. The Web site includes an interactive version of the book’s life expectancy calculator.

Perls is a renowned researcher at Harvard Medical School and the founder and director of the study. Silver, a neuropsychologist, is a clinical instructor in psychology at Harvard Medical School and associate director of the study.

The de Tornyay Center on Healthy Aging is named for Dr. Rheba de Tornyay, dean emeritus of the School of Nursing, and builds on the work of its predecessor, the Center for Care of Older Adults. It serves as a catalyst for promoting healthy aging through education, clinical services and research. Dr. Linda Teri, professor of nursing, is the center’s director. ¶

Laurie McHale