Time marches on as it did before the surgery. Gradually, the skin relaxes and new wrinkles form. Perhaps, in six years, the skin will have loosened to the same degree it was at the time of surgery. But even then, the appearance will be six years younger than it would have been without surgery

While the question of indefinite youth may have been answered with a resounding "NO" even a decade ago, there are now serious plastic surgeons, including myself, who believe that, with properly timed interventions, women and men can maintain a youthful appearance well into old age.

For example, one could have a facelift at fifty, followed by laser touch-ups, fat injection to maintain volume, well into a patient's senior years. I have patients in their seventies who swear that they are going to fight the aging process every step of the way. They look youthful and vital. They refuse to look old and feel irrelevant. I have patients in their fifties, sixties, and the occasional septogenarian (See Patient W.A. in Patient Photographs) that can still turn heads.