中国的老龄化问题

Picking up coins is something most people do without thinking. But for the elderly such an everyday task can often become a burden.

The loss of flexibility in the joints, and a loss of eyesight, can mean this simple task can be tiring and take a long time to achieve. This is where the "age suit" comes into play.

The German Meyer-Hentschel Institut developed it in 1995, and the latest version came out in 2008.

Now Berlin's University Clinic Charite has started using the suit to train medical students in cooperation with Berlin's protestant seniors institute specialized clinic for the care of elderly people.

Rahel Eckardt is the senior physician for geriatric medicine in the German capital. She explains how the suit works.

"The whole suit weighs about 10 kilograms. This is to simulate that older people have less muscle power and less muscle mass. We also have the helmet and the visor that makes it harder to see and to differentiate between colors. And we have the headphones that simulate how older people can have difficulties hearing."

Even putting on the suit is hard. It takes at least two people to dress the student with the weights around the torso and the joints.

The jacket and trousers are made especially heavy. They are a bit like wearing clothes made out of lead. And the helmet, visor and headphones severely restrict the student's senses.

Eckardt says most students are surprised how difficult it is for them to move when they are wearing the suit. She says that is the whole point—for them to understand just how difficult normal tasks can be for elderly people.

"We want to give the students a sense of what it is like to be old. That means that when we put the age suit on a student we hope that they will at least somewhat understand what the physical life of an older person is like. At least they will understand it better than when they just read or hear lectures about it."

Katharina Wirth is a third-year medicine student. She says she was surprised at how heavy and hard everything becomes when wearing the suit.

"You notice how heavy it is for the back. You bend down a bit, and you notice in the knee and arm joints that you can't bend them properly. And you can't feel anything with the hands. And also getting out of bed is very difficult."

In the future staff at the protestant seniors institute hope to use the suit to train nurses and therapists in addition to future doctors.

They hope they can continue to transform students into seniors, even for just a few minutes, to improve elderly care of the future.

For CRI, I am Li Dong.