That is a common scenario I face in my practice as my interests are on Non-Surgical Facial Anti-aging Therapy mainly.
Firstly, it depends on how well you have maintained your facial tissues over the years. I have had patients who are 50 plus, and they look like they are in their late 30s, early 40s due to good use of sunblock. Also, yearly maintenance treatments helps (threadlifts, ellanse, fillers, thermage, ultherapy). These patients are definitely suitable to go ahead with a yearly threadlift.
There are also some patients in the 50s who are blessed with good genes. They only suffer from a lack of volume in the common fat pads that lose volume due to aging (sub-orbicularis oculi fat pad, deep medial cheek fat, temporal fat pad) and nasolabial folds (smile lines).
These patients have very little jowls (jowling is the descent and hypertrophy of the superior and inferior jowl fats adjacent to the corner of the mouth, which creates a bulldog like appearance and requires a physical lifting with threads). These second group of patients just require collagen-stimulating fillers like Ellanse or Radiesse.
The converse is true: if nothing has been done before to reverse your facial age by the age of 50, the most logical and appropriate solution would be to go for a surgical facelift, and then some fat grafts or ellanse to replace the volume loss thereafter. (Surgical facelifts do not address the loss of volume related to aging).
Having said that, even patients who had not done anything previously to address their facial aging issues still frequently DO NOT WANT any surgery. Main reasons: fear of GA complications (these patients usually have diabetic or cardiovascular issues), surgical complications (irreversible), prolonged downtime, the "overtightened look" (seen in Hollywood).
So I tailor their expectation downwards, and inform them clearly that non-surgical techniques will not give them a surgical facelift result. I do not start until they fully understand that they may need to spend much more than a surgical facelift for lesser results. However, the main benefit is that it is non-surgical and can be repeated yearly.
Then, for them, I use my ART (Anatomical Restoration Therapy) FACELIFT technique. Fat pads volume loss are volumised with high G’ fillers like Teosyal Ultradeep, Radiesse or Ellanse (high G’ gives a lift together with volume replacement due to the high lifting power).
Fat descent is addressed via threadlifts like Mint Lift or Silhouette Soft (physical lifting of heavy fat pads and subsequent collagen stimulation). Dermal issues are addressed via a combination of fractional resurfacing lasers, Rejuran and Teosyal Redensity I.
Hope that answers your question!