Skin Aging: Symptoms, Complaints, Signs

Typical signs of skin aging are:

  • Wrinkles
  • Sagging
  • Atrophy (shrinkage, or reduction in cell mass).
  • Yellowish discoloration
  • Lipid deficiency (lack of fats)
  • Irregular pigmentation

Skin

The skin of age is sensitive to dehydration. The secretion of sweat decreases with age. The level of sebum on the skin decreases. The ability of old skin to adapt to the environment and neutralize bases is reduced. This results in additional diseases or irritations such as those caused by detergents – eczéma craquelé is also typical. Eczéma craquelé presents itself as craquelé-like horny layer tears with redness and scaling. Characteristics of aging skin are atrophy, dryness, wrinkling, loss of elasticity, roughness, pigment irregularities/shifts, tendency to form mostly benign neoplasms. In men with oily facial skin, excessive growth of the sebaceous glands is seen, which are arranged in a ring shape. The absolute number of sweat glands decreases with age. Other typical symptoms of aging skin are age spots (lat. Lentigines seniles, Lentigines solares), seborrheic keratoses (synonyms: seborrheic wart, age wart, verruca seborrhoica), telangiectasias (dilated veins) and angiomas (hematomas). Furthermore, wrinkles appear between the nose and mouth (nasolabial fold), around the eyes and on the forehead. Especially mimic wrinkles appear here. The aging of the skin in the face is also accompanied by loss of volume, i.e. loss of subcutaneous fatty tissue and musculature, which is manifested by hollow cheeks and dark circles under the eyes. Furthermore, a cheek ptosis (lowering of the cheeks; “sagging”) develops, which is a result of gravitation. The forehead often shows clear signs of extrinsic aging such as pigmentary shifts and keratoses. The eye region often shows crow’s feet (lineae orbitales laterales) due to aging. The mouth region (perioral region) is characterized in old age by narrowing and blurring of the lip contour, perioral radial wrinkles (wrinkles arranged around the lips) and marionette lines (sad corners of the mouth). Volume loss does not occur in this region, but redistribution of volume and length does occur.

Hair

The hair on the head becomes thinning (hair density decreases) and yellowish-dirty gray with age. Senile hair thinning is usually diffuse – it affects women as well as men. At the same time, alopecia androgentica (alopecia/hair loss of the male type) may occur. In the middle parts of the eyebrows (“bushy brows”, especially in men), at the ears and in the nasal entrance, the hair grows more. On the other hand, eyebrow hairs fall out laterally. Early gray hairiness correlates with a positive family history and obesity.

Nails

Nails are thicker with age, grow more slowly, and become brittle. The nail of the big toe, in particular, often changes its direction of growth and becomes misshapen thick.Typical age-associated changes in the nails (modified after).

Koilonychia Spoon nails, hollow nails; brittle, fragile nails (especially of the fingers) with spoon-shaped deformation
Onychauxis Thickening of the nails without deformity
Onychoclavus Nail hyperkeratosis localized below the distal nail margin
Onychogryphosis Claw nails (thickening and curvature)
Onycholysis Detachment of the nail from the nail bed
Onychophosis Thickening of the nail edge
Onychorrhexis Splitting of the nails/brittle nails
Pachyonychia Thickening and hardening of the nail plate
Pincer-nail syndrome Pincer-nail
Platonychia abnormal flattening of the nail plate
Splinter hemorrhages Hemorrhages into the nail plate
Subungual hematoma Bruise under the nail, DD melanoma
Trachyonychia thinned nail plates with rough surface
Unguis incarnatus also Onychocryptosis ingrown nail