Heavy Suit Gives the Young a Taste of Old Age

The Age Man Suit helps simulate life in old age for young wearers. CREDIT: Meyer-Hentschel Institute View full size image

Young people can finally get a taste of what their aging parents and grandparents experience by putting on the "Age Man Suit." The cumbersome suit pulls off a Rip Van Winkle feat by transforming wearers into their stiff, blurry-eyed elderly versions decades into the future.

The Age Man Suit combines a yellow visor, knee and elbow pads, a Kevlar-style vest and padded gloves, according to The Guardian. German researchers created the suit as a way of "sensitizing" modern societies to the lives and needs of their rapidly-aging populations — the product of a joint vision between Berlin's Evangelical Geriatrics Centre and the Meyer-Hentschel Institute in Saarbrucken.

Physicians have found the suit especially helpful for getting medical students interested in the specialty of geriatrics. The world will undoubtedly need many more physicians specializing in the care of the elderly as societies ranging from Europe to Asia begin aging.

Similar suits in the past have done more than just simulate old age — a "Mommy Tummy" pregnancy suit recreated the nine months of pregnancy in just over two minutes for men to better understand the challenges women face.

Source: The Guardian

This story was provided by InnovationNewsDaily, a sister site to LiveScience. Follow InnovationNewsDaily on Twitter @News_Innovation, or on Facebook.