Dr. George H. Taylor applies ultrasound gel to the face of Florence Romero in preparation for a photo facial, which is used to treat sun-damaged skin. Photos by John Gurzinski. A photo-facial device is applied to Florence Romero's sun-damaged skin. Dr. George H. Taylor uses a photo-facial device to alleviate signs of sun damage on Florence Romero's face.

Diane Donovan-Vaughn of Las Vegas is 54, but she's sometimes mistaken as a contemporary of her 30-year-old son. Yet she remembers her grandmother as "a little old lady, with little-old-lady dresses, steel-gray hair, plump and round.

"And she was in her early 40s."

For at least a segment of the population, 50 is the new 30. And like just about every other major trend of the past few decades, you can credit -- or blame -- the Baby Boomers.

"The academic community -- researchers -- have known about this for some time," said David Demko, a specialist on aging who's based in Boca Raton, Fla. "Because of Baby Boomers being such a large demographic ... you have a demographic that is impacting everything: home ownership, second-home ownership, travel, purchasers of luxury goods, spas, health clubs.

"Who are these people? When my dad was 50, he didn't act that way."

Demko, who at 56 runs 2 miles every morning, could be counted as one of "these people." And he says part of the reason these 50-somethings seem so much younger than their parents did at the same age is the very nature of the generation.

"Look at Baby Boomers," Demko said. "They were the ones back in the '70s that said, 'Hell, no, we won't go.' They just went against authority.

" 'Retire? I'm going to re-invent it. Aging? I'm going to defy it.' One thing is the Boomer attitude that 'I'm going to live my life on my own terms.' "

Another thing is technology. Joanne Maioli, a registered nurse and licensed aesthetician with Skinklinic at Mandalay Place, said she sees plenty of 50-somethings -- and 40 percent of her clients are male.

What treatments are they seeking?

"What we're finding most popular would be Botox injections," she said, and "Restylane injections to ease wrinkling in the nose and mouth area."

Maioli said Skinklinic also stays busy doing intense pulse light photo facials. They help, she said, to alleviate broken blood vessels and hyperpigmentation from "all those years in the sun we did when we were in the '60s." The technique helps remove fine lines and improves skin tone and texture, she said.

"It's probably our best secret," she said.

All of which, of course, comes at a price. Maioli said a series of four intense pulse light treatments is $825, and a series of four glycolic skin peels is $375.

Other treatment options include the recently approved Sculptra, which is injected, "but it's not a filler," Maioli said. "It brings back volume to the face" with polylactic acid, "which, when injected into the deep dermis, will in essence tell your body that you're now 16 again and that you need to get busy and build more collagen back.

"You're going to be reading about that a lot."

Such cheating-the-clock treatments are only becoming more popular, but what's the motivation?

"A lot of people feel they're going to be taken more seriously if they have a better appearance," Maioli said. "People have changes in their life -- a divorce or some sort of professional change, and they want to literally upgrade themselves. I see that all the time -- high-powered people, big names in this country who have walked in here and wanted changes. Now that HDTV is here, all those little flaws are going to be seen."

Maioli is 53, and when asked if she looks like her mother did at her age, she replies, "not at all. I have less lines, I have clearer skin. I have that 30-year-old lifestyle, I do believe, and most of my friends are in that age range -- more active physically, socially. I haven't taken to knitting and putting myself in a rocking chair yet. I'm still working out in the gym."

Such lifestyles changes are keeping people younger, Demko noted.

"Someone who has had 50 birthdays, they're chronologically 50, but because of advances in health care, better nutrition, diet, people tending to exercise, they are physiologically 30," he said.

And he said physiological age is only part of the process. Social aging, he said, "has to do with taking on roles that may be more oriented to a different age group," while emotional aging "has to do with your level of maturity, ability to maintain psychological hardiness."

Though the phenomenon is more widespread because of sheer numbers, it's far from new, Demko noted.

"We age in a lot of different ways, and if somebody strikes gold ... we look at them as kind of the Dick Clark kind of thing. Not just physiologically, but it's something about the spark in their eye, the tone of their voice. It's the way they behave, the way they dress."

He noted that people in occupations in which they exercise their minds have been found to be less susceptible to Alzheimer's disease and some other chronic disorders.

"What is old to begin with?" he asked. "It's chronological. What does that mean? Some people are young-old, and then there's the old-old."

Demko said researchers have begun to look at a person's age in terms of the speed of their responses.

"Johnny Carson, up to the day he died, you would say he was probably more like 30 in terms of his ability to banter," he said. "George Burns. Mel Brooks."

In addition to being mentally active, he said, it's been found that a healthy sense of humor and a positive attitude help slow the aging process.

Donovan-Vaughn, who's a marriage and family therapist and licensed alcohol and drug counselor, noted that some lifestyle changes have been unintended.

"Sometimes I think that has to do with we're not outside all the time and we don't have the skin damage," she said, noting that her grandmother "was one of those old ladies who drug her babies along on a blanket in the sun, picking cotton. She aged really fast and worked really hard.

"We believe you're only as young as you feel. Sometimes it comes as a shock to us that we can't do some things."

Which is when we may end up at the offices of Dr. Mary Ann Shannon.

"We're seeing people who've had prior trauma when they were younger, some of them with failed reconstruction," said Shannon, an orthopedic surgeon. "It's starting to get younger for things like rotator cuffs, because they're staying more active. They want to be doing more things. We can't tell them, 'Just take it easy.' That's not what they want to hear."

Rehabilitation and the choice of a good therapist becomes particularly important, Shannon said, because "the inclination is to try to get back into sports right away. They have to educate themselves to slowly bring themselves back to the level of function."

Technology is helping on this front, too, she said, with such things as porcelain-covered replacement hip joints, which tend to last longer in active people, and high-flexion knee replacements that give patients more range of motion.

"They're changing the dynamics," she said of researchers, who recently created the unicondyler knee replacement, which replaces only the inner-leg part of the knee, which tends to go first.

Want to be part of the trend? Demko says to take a look at your diet and nutrition, and try to reduce caloric intake by 10 percent.

"Add 1 more mile of walking per day," he added. "Go up to the third-floor restroom and use that one rather than the one downstairs. Don't use the elevator."

Also he said, monitor your health, and know what your risk factors are.

"I know where the reefs and rocks are, and I can avoid those," he said.

And Donovan-Vaughn suggests you keep things in perspective.

"Be realistic about what you can accomplish," she said. "Have a good attitude that you're going to do as well as you can and keep a good outlook.

"I really think it does help you to stay young."