Feel the Old Age Hitches with MIT 'AGNES' Body Suit


Bangalore: A group of researchers from MIT AgeLab has designed a suit to understand the physical problems of old age. The name of this suit is AGNES (Age Gain Now Empathy System); it simulates old age and makes you feel like a 75 year old person having diabetics and arthritis.

This suit consists of shoes that compromise sense of balance and shortens pace; braces for knees and elbows that limits joint mobility; earplugs that tune out soft or high-pitched sounds; helmet that compresses the spine; and gloves that reduces strength and mobility in hands and wrists along with a physical sensation.

According to U.S Censes 16% of US population will be above 65 years by 2029, which means the nation is getting older.  Therefore the key purpose of this AGNES suit is to experience the physical limitations of old age which will make the product developers, car engineers, public transporters, marketers and many other concerned bodies to understand old age problems, so that they can craft the products and services according to the old age needs.

India is said to be a young nation with 30% of its population coming under 10–24 age group. So India will not be worrying much about this AGNES suit for next few decades as for the next 20 to 25 years the working age consumer group will be dominant in India. However, according to a report in Economic Times of India “The number of people in the old-age group is expected to increase rapidly (in absolute terms) after 2020. In fact, over the next 10 years, the fastest growing age group in percentage terms will be people older than 55”, which means even if we are concerned now the knowledge of coming situation is always helpful.