Clinical Biases
Attributing a new physical symptom in an older adult to "just getting old."
What is normal aging bias?
The main government health insurance program for seniors, which traditionally has major gaps in covering long-term nursing care.
What is Medicare?
A major public health crisis among older adults proven to be just as damaging to health as smoking.
What is chronic loneliness?
The formal term for systematic stereotyping and discrimination against people because they are old.
What is ageism?
The specialized branch of medicine focused entirely on the health and care of older adults.
What is geriatrics?
Using baby talk or patronizing language with an older patient instead of talking to them as an equal adult.
What is elderspeak?
When hospitals transition entirely to smartphone apps and online portals, it creates this kind of technological barrier for many seniors.
What is the digital divide?
When older adults internalize ageism, they are less likely to seek help for this common mental health challenge.
What is depression?
Pop-culture greeting cards love to joke about physical decay and cognitive decline once people reach this milestone age (also a common age where people may be described as having a "mid-life crisis").
What is turning 50
Programs that bring older adults and young students together to break down stereotypes and build connection.
What are intergenerational programs?
Assuming older adults cannot tolerate aggressive or life-saving treatments, leading to missed care.
What is undertreatment?
Setting rigid age limits that cut older adults off from receiving organ transplants or specialized care.
What is age rationing?
Ageism often overlaps with poverty and financial hardship, linking it to this type of inequality.
What is classism/socioeconomic inequality?
Research shows that older adults with this type of outlook on getting older actually live longer on average.
What is a positive attitude/mindset about aging?
Communities redesigned by the WHO to make public spaces, housing, and transit physically accessible for seniors
What are Age-Friendly Cities?
This demographic group is frequently left out of medical research trials, meaning doctors have less safety data for them.
Who are older adults?
A federal law that protects people from discrimination based on this physical trait in federally funded programs.
What is age?
Abuse or neglect of older adults is most commonly committed by this group of people.
Who are family members or caregivers?
Gerontologists recommend replacing stigmatizing terms like "the elderly" with this respectful, neutral phrase.
What is "older adults"?
Adding mandatory training on aging into the core curriculum of these professional schools.
What are medical and nursing schools?
Unconscious stereotypes held by doctors that cause them to value younger lives more than older lives.
What is implicit age bias?
Emergency guidelines used during medical shortages that use physical frailty scores, which critics say penalize older patients.
What are crisis triage or frailty guidelines?
The World Health Organization's global initiative running from 2021 to 2030 to combat ageism worldwide.
What is the Decade of Healthy Ageing?
Medical marketing and beauty ads frequently frame normal aging as this kind of problem that needs to be fought.
A disease/anti-aging battle
A modern healthcare framework centered around the "4Ms": What Matters, Medication, Mentation, and Mobility.
What is an Age-Friendly Health System?