John Leland’s recent article in the New York Times features a program called “Xtreme Aging,” which is designed to simulate the diminished abilities associated with old age.  A fascinating and essential read for those caring for the elderly.

As the population in the developing world ages, simulation programs like Xtreme Aging have become a regular part of many nursing or medical school curriculums, and have crept into the corporate world, where knowing what it is like to be elderly increasingly means better understanding one’s customers or even employees — how to design signs or instrument panels, how to make devices more usable.

With the baby boomers edging into their 60s, engineers at Ford and other car companies have designed elaborate “age suits” that restrict movement and blur vision to approximate the effects of aging.

“I must say, you look lovely,” said Vicki Rosebrook, executive director of the Macklin Intergenerational Institute in Findlay, Ohio, which developed Xtreme Aging as a sensitivity training program for schools, churches, workplaces and other groups that have contact with the elderly.

Click here to read the entirety of John Leland’s article in the New York Times.