Old Age Simulation Suit Lets People Experience Aging Before Their Time

(Photo: The Guardian)

What's it like to get old? If you're lucky, you'll find out eventually. But it can be valuable to learn now. Health care professionals in particular can benefit from personally experiencing the struggles of their elderly patients. That's why South Bank University in London acquired a suit designed to simulate the physical limitations that often occur with advanced age.

Like something out of "Harrison Bergeron," the suit designed by Wolfgang Moll has weights that wrap around the body, reducing strength and dexterity. Earmuffs limit hearing and special goggles simulate a variety of eye impairments.

South Bank University loaned its suit to Josh Halliday, a reporter for The Guardian and a healthy young man. You can watch him struggle to maneuver up and down stairs and along the streets of London. A walk around the block becomes exhausting.


(Video Link)

-via I Own the World


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Fascinating! As someone who suffers from a degenerative disease that's affecting the nerves in my feet and legs, walking becomes more difficult by the day. Many of my friends know my condition and yet someone invariably want to walk somewhere for lunch. I always have to bow out and invariably someone huffs, "But it's just down the street." Yes down the street several blocks for you is nothing. For me it's a marathon for which I'm not sure that, even if I made it there, how in the world I'd be able to make it back. It's THOSE friends I'd like to have to wear this for a day.
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Old age is not for sissies. That said, it's kind of sad to think any "health practitioners" need to experience pain themselves before they believe what their patients are going through. Empathy not working?
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