Practical contributions of occupational science to the art of successful ageing: How to sculpt a meaningful life in older adulthood

Given that the longevity revolution has already arrived and will continue to flourish in the upcoming decades, Western societies are confronted with the urgent challenge of promoting the goal of successful ageing for untold millions of citizens. With regard to this goal, current thinking points to the optimistic conclusion that potentially controllable lifestyle factors play a crucial role in enabling people to experience health and satisfying lives well into older adulthood. In this paper, the importance of occupation as providing a fundamental, personally relevant context for the enactment of sustainable lifestyle choices that foster successful ageing is described. This stress on the significance of occupation is supported by the successful outcome of an experimental test of a preventive occupational therapy intervention designed to promote health and psychosocial well‐being in community dwelling elders. Based on the theory and research that is discussed, a practically oriented synthetic overview is provided of the conditions conducive to successful ageing.