This Strange Suit Simulates the Weight of Old Age
The Age Explorer gives an idea of what it’s like to age
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For the young and spry, understanding what it’s like to live in an aging body, when simple acts become tiring chores, is difficult. But a suit known as the Age Explorer is meant to help designers, doctors and architects better empathize with that experiences, so that they might build a better world for the eldest among us.
On the BBC program Dara O Briain’s Science Club, science journalist Alok Jha donned the suit, with its weights and earmuffs and other restraints. Jha described the sensation of being old: “Everything is just quite heavy, and you feel like you’ve just run a marathon, and you just want to sit down. That’s mainly what you want to do.”
More from Smithsonian.com:
10 Ways Tech Makes Old Age Easier
Being a Lifelong Bookworm May Keep You Sharp in Old Age
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