Suiting up for old age
Are you curious to know what it feels like to age? Americans now have the opportunity to experience the creaks that come with old age after researchers at Massachusetts
Institute of Technology’s AgeLab designed an ‘old person suit’.The person wearing the Age Gain Now Empathy System (AGNES) suit will be able to experience what it feels to be a 75-year-old with arthritis and diabetes.
Are you curious to know what it feels like to age? Americans now have the opportunity to experience the creaks that come with old age after researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s AgeLab designed an ‘old person suit’.
The person wearing the Age Gain Now Empathy System (AGNES) suit will be able to experience what it feels to be a 75-year-old with arthritis and diabetes.
AGNES has been worn by students to see how “physically limiting” it can be to grow older.
The LA Times reports how researchers adjusted the AGNES suit to make the wearer “just as uncomfortable” as an elderly person who has spent a lifetime eating poorly and engaging
in little exercise.
“The business of old age demands new tools. While focus groups and observations and surveys can help you understand what the older consumer needs and wants, young marketers [often never experience] that problem of having difficulties in opening a jar or getting in and out of a car,” director of the AgeLab, Joseph Coughlin, says.
The suit features special shoes which provide a feeling of imbalance, while braces on the knees and elbows limit joint mobility. Gloves give the illusion of decreased strength and mobility in the hands and wrists, and earplugs make it difficult to hear high-pitched sounds and soft tones. A helmet also compresses the spine, while straps attached to the shoes decrease hamstring flexibility and shortens the wearers’ gait.
However, Mr Coughlin says AGNES “is not the destiny of everybody”.
“She is a badly behaved lady who didn’t eat and exercise very well… it has become a powerful tool to get younger people to invest in their long-term health,” he says.
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