Aging in 10 Minutes: Do Age Simulation Suits Mimic Physical Decline in Old Age? Comparing Experimental Data with Established Reference Data

ABSTRACT

Introduction

Age simulation suits are increasingly used in health care education. However, empirical evidence that quantifies the simulated performance losses in established geriatric tests and compares those declines with reference data of older adults is scarce.

Methods

In a standardized lab setting, we compared performance of N = 61 participants (46 middle-aged, 15 young adults) with and without age simulation suit, for example in the Timed Up and Go Test (+dual task), Short Physical Performance Battery, grip strength, and 30-Second-Chair- Standing Test. Additionally, we compared the results with suit to established reference values of older adults in different age groups.

Results

Reduced performance was observed in both groups when wearing the suit, yet to different degrees dependent on the assessment and user age. For one, larger declines were observed in more challenging and complex tasks across age groups. In addition, comparisons with reference values revealed age-differential “instant aging” effects.

Discussion

A simulated “fourth age,” where frailty and impairments are accumulating, was not reached in the majority of assessments, especially not among younger participants. In conclusion, existing age simulation suits may have some educational and empathy potential, but so far, they fail in simulating the age period with most serious functional loss.

Acknowledgments

We thank our scientific research colleagues in the HeiAge team for the support, the encouraging discussions and lab conditions, as well as our group of research assistants (Stephanie Brucker, Anke Baetzner, Stephanie Zintel, Stella Wernicke, Julius Donat and Leslie Carleton-Schweitzer) for the help with the data collection.

This study was not preregistered at any independent or institutional registry.

We provide data and analytic methods upon request.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Carl Zeiss Foundation 0563-2.8/738/2, Project HeiAge.