What a Drag It Is Getting Old

The New York Times reports on how medical personnel are learning what it's like to be old and infirmed by age.

Mrs. Ramirez is only 33, but on a recent morning she was taking part in a three-hour training program called Xtreme Aging, designed to simulate the diminished abilities associated with old age.

Along with 15 colleagues and a reporter, Mrs. Ramirez, a social worker at the facility, put on distorting glasses to blur her vision; stuffed cotton balls in her ears to reduce her hearing, and in her nose to dampen her sense of smell; and put on latex gloves with adhesive bands around the knuckles to impede her manual dexterity. Everyone put kernels of corn in their shoes to approximate the aches that come from losing fatty tissue.

They had become, in other words, virtual members of the 5.3 million Americans age 85 and older, the nation’s fastest-growing age group — the people the staff at the facility work with every day.

What a drag it is getting old, even if it’s just make-believe.

As my hairline recedes and more young people call me "sir," I have to say the prospect of this future can creep me out. However, my dad is 87 and he is the most positive example of facing adversity with grace and style in spite of post-polio syndrome and being a cancer survivor. It's darn difficult to be him and I really admire how he (and my mom) live on their own so successfully.