She also adds that “attention needs to be paid to support and care for people with cognitive impairment who had different outcomes to those with physical health conditions”.

Living longer is great, but living healthier is arguably more important. It means that we have more time to enjoy the freedoms that health brings, like spending time with friends and family, moving around independently and fulfilling simple tasks on our own. There are things we can all do to support our own healthspan: exercising, eating a well-balanced diet and looking after our brain health.

However, Bennett notes that there is a need for the government to fix the inequalities that impact our healthspan. The healthcare postcode lottery and the impact of lower incomes both have a huge effect on improving the likelihood of those disability-free years – particularly when it comes to conditions such as dementia. We know, for example, that there is an association between higher education and slower cognitive decline which suggests that those from lower-income backgrounds may be more at risk of cognitive impairments.

But the biggest take-home is that our healthy years seem to be continuing into later life, giving us more independence and happiness. With the current state of the world, we’ll take all the good news we can.

Healthspan is increasing - this is why your healthy years matters