Age Simulation Suit
103 comments
·September 4, 2025coldcode
rootusrootus
Reminds me of a guy I knew when I was growing up. At the time he was in his 80s. Walked miles every day, he was in great shape. Still died before 90, so it did not buy him notable longevity, but he was mentally sharp and physically capable up to very near the end. That sounds way better than slowly turning into a vegetable over the last 20 years of your life.
vhcr
Only 19.7% of men live at least 88 years in the US, let's define notable longevity to be the top 1%, that would imply living at least 99 years.
kulahan
My dad is in his mid-70s now, and still swims 3-5 miles a week in the ocean currents and waves. He’s so active and so healthy, I literally have a hard time imagining what he’ll be like when he’s feeble.
15 years ago, we went for a hike at elevation and he actually kicked my ass despite being around 35 years older than me. Crazy stuff. That alone was enough to kick my ass into gear. Now I do sprints and lifting, and I actually enjoy it now that my goal is just “do something for health” rather than “reach a half-ton total across my big-3” or something like that.
MontyCarloHall
>but many simply chose to not do anything to avoid the aging
Thank you for saying this. A depressingly large proportion of people are seemingly resigned to the fact that once you hit 40-50, you'll inevitably turn into an achy tub of lard and it's rapidly and irreversibly downhill from there.
Barring injuries that are truly irreversible (e.g. severe damage to joints/cartilage), with the correct diet and fitness regime, it's entirely possible to remain lean (≤20% bodyfat) and muscular (≥80th percentile in strength standards [0]) well into what most consider "old age." So many people have no idea just how poorly they eat or how inactive and physically weak they are, and consider the result to just be a normal part of life.
>I also write code daily, read the same things I read when I worked, thus keep my brain going too. You can't ignore body or mind, you have to keep both in tune.
Thanks for saying this too. So much cognitive decline is due to inactivity of the mind. My mom was whip smart until she retired in her mid-60s to a life of idle leisure, and her mental faculties noticeably deteriorated within a few months. Thankfully, she noticed this and deliberately re-engaged with more intense intellectual pursuits (including consulting part-time in the professional field that she loved), and the improvement was night-and-day.
stavros
I've noticed that the difference between 30 and 40 isn't the level of performance I have, but how quickly performance drops when I stop exercising. In my 30s, I could just not go to the gym for months, and I'd be fine. Now, if I don't go for a few weeks, stuff starts aching.
MontyCarloHall
This is very true, which is why consistency is so key. I think the reason so many people perceive their health falling off in their 40s is that this is when the cumulative weight of increasing life responsibilities (kids, career advancement, caring for elder relatives, etc.) really hits hard, making it more and more difficult to find time/energy for regular exercise.
captainkrtek
My grandma is 90 and still lives alone, walks around her neighborhood daily, and swims in a community pool outside her back door. She attributes it (I think rightfully) to a lot of walking and activity throughout her life.
Probably some good genes too (her brother is 100, her sister just passed at 104)
0x1ceb00da
Could it be survivorship bias? You'll only ever inhabit your own body. You don't know what it's like to be someone else. Some people are built different.
specialist
Yes and: Maintain your balance. Get tested (assessed). Do the exercises. (For anyone who hasn't heard.)
My mom and her bf were hard core. Swimming, biking, running, the works.
They served as one of the hosts for BBC's program Are You Fitter Than a Pensioner? [2010] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00tyr5n My mom was 70 at the time. Spoiler: The seniors smoked the youths.
Alas, as with so many: falls -> injury -> idleness -> decline.
Some balance stuff can't be helped. Mom's bf got spells of vertigo; apparently the little balancing sensor bone inside the ear gets loose with age.
nate
My dad is 85 and this article hits hard about what he fights going on in his body. What sucks is how much of a downward, self reinforcing spiral it all is. It's so hard to see the curbs to walk over or how to get to a thing himself, so he just naturally chooses to do fewer and fewer things. Watching TV is safer and kinder and becomes the default to anything. Which just makes his brain less and less stimulated and active, and you can imagine the drag that adds to keep figuring out life.
But like the empathy found in this article, it's caused me to be incredibly more patient with anyone struggling to walk in front of me on a crowded or narrow sidewalk.
Aging is rough. Thank you to everyone working on accessibility and aging related tech and science.
barnabyjones
My parents have similar issues due to hearing loss, it really makes any kind of social interaction a chore which results in a similar spiral. For years I've wanted to try to make, or hope someone else would make, a set of AR glasses that's purely focused on providing accurate real-time subtitles, no other gimmicks or features that might affect the wearability/usability. I think that's the biggest QOL boost most old folks would get from a single product, and it seems much more realistically feasible than other potential QOL solutions like robotics, but I wouldn't know where to start with building it. As a bonus, it would just need an LLM/Google Translate hookup to become an amazing travel tool.
costcopizza
My grandma is 83 and I could’ve written this exact same post.
I know it comes for everyone, but the pace of said spiral is frightening.
Wish we were in a timeframe with more alternatives for rapid loss of mobility and muscle.
SlowTao
While it is challenging, looked at one a life time scale it is kind of a neat thing. It isn't a purely linear decline and that means while the later years kind of suck, you get a lot of decent time before then.
Yes, we should try and work against this but I am just looking at the silver lining.
gowld
When you stop walking, that's the beginning of the end.
amarant
This! My grandmother adopted a dog late in her life. She walked 10km a day with that dog for nearly 20 years! (That dog was the oldest dog I've ever known). At 92 she was famous in my small village, she was in better shape than some of the 30 year olds!
Then the dog died. Instead of walking 10km per day, she lay on the couch staring at the ceiling. About 3 months later she started getting lost on her way to the supermarket. Fifth time she got lost we decided to put her in a home for demented people. We simply couldn't provide the care she needed any other way. Took a few more months and she stopped recognising us.
I think she outlived her dog by about 18 months, iirc.
She stopped walking, and then age came fast for her.
ChrisMarshallNY
I'm 63. I make a point of walking 5Km (3 miles), every morning. I'm usually out the door, by 0530, and back in about 50 minutes.
I was running, but kept getting injured, so it switched to walking, several years ago.
I think keeping my mind occupied is just as important. It's entirely possible that the visual stimulus of her walks was as important as the exercise.
For myself, I make a point of constantly working on shipping software, and constantly learning new stuff. LLMs have been a godsend, for the latter. I had pretty much given up on trying to ask questions, because of the awful, sneering responses that I was getting, more and more.
adastra22
I have never been a dog person. Now I want a dog.
bayesnet
My grandfather, with whom I was very close, suffered from Parkinson's in his last decade or so. For a long time he was doing OK: Occasional confusion and the slow, shuffling walk that is characteristic of the disease.
One day he had a minor operation that left him needing a wheelchair for what we thought would be just a few weeks. But he never regained his strength and was never to walk again, which led to a steep and sudden decline in his mental condition. It was truly devastating to see one of the sharpest people I knew become an angry and confused simulacrum of the man I so admired.
I wish I had realized two things then: First, as you say, maintaining mobility is the crucial to the well-being of the elderly. Second, immediate physical/occupational therapy after a fall or surgery is essential to people at risk of losing mobility. Sadly it wasn't offered to us and we didn't think to ask.
hnhnhnaccount
My dad is going through that shit right now. He fell a few weeks ago and hasn’t walked since.
I live abroad to make more money and feed my ego and I only see him 3–4 times a year. On top of that selfishness, every now and then I catch myself selfishly thinking I don’t want to go through that, which makes me feel like an even worst piece of shit.
Life sucks.
SlowTao
When it comes to physical exercise, this is the key fundamental one. Yes, others things help but it is the foundation on which everything else rests.
Alas, it can be taken away without choice, hopefully not.
raincole
One of the technologies I look forward to is exoskeleton. Yes I know it will be used by the army. But the potential to improve elders' lives is huge.
pfannkuchen
Why would it be used by the army? Seems like you don’t need the squishy meat filling for that use case.
kulahan
There are lots of instances where a soldier being 5-6 times stronger would be really useful.
I don’t think it’ll be a scenario like the starship troopers book, but having one available to a swat team or whatever, could be useful.
Still, I personally think the army would be one of the last applications, because that’s where you need the absolute lowest possible latency. Latency on a suit for an elderly person would be much more acceptable.
ACCount37
Aging should be recognized as a disease already. It's long overdue.
1718627440
Disease is abnormal to some "norm". When everyone has it, it's not a disease.
ACCount37
I would appreciate if the "norm" was recognized to be not having your body rot away over time.
It really is simple: aging is incredibly harmful and undesirable. It strips away your quality of life until there isn't much left and then you die. It doesn't take any more than that for it to be declared a disease.
Whether it's "natural" or whether "everyone has it" is a distraction. If everyone was born with cancer, that wouldn't make cancer any less of a disease.
squigz
Beyond the obvious (medical care, accessibility, etc), I think technology has a huge amount of untapped potential to make the end of our lives a lot more bearable, and a lot less lonely. TV is one thing - and whether it's a net good or not has been discussed to death, so I won't here - but I wonder how video games might be used. They're a lot more engaging - both generally and cognitively - than TV, you can build and achieve things and feel a sense of accomplishment (yeah yeah pride and accomplishment), there are communities around them, you can play with your family, etc. Even online board and card games would be an option. Have you ever considered showing your dad some simple games?
Slow_Hand
Can’t speak to the cognitive benefits of video games in late life, but my grandma really took to our N64 one summer when my brother and I stayed with her.
She used to stay absorbed in a little battery powered draw poker game that she had, but by the end of the summer she had gone through a large part of our game collection and could put up a real challenge in Mario Kart 64.
Eventually we gifted it to her and she played it for years after that.
greyb
From what I recall, there are retirement homes (the examples I'm thinking of are in Asia) that make use of these suits in their onboarding processes, where they need to wear these suits for a few hours to understand some of the challenges their patients experience, and develop empathy when they can't walk as fast or do things that we'd expect in short order.
I would love to see more widespread adoption of these suits in training and employee onboarding in these facilities, mostly because if I'm in that situation or I want to think about a retirement home for my family members, I'd want to see that no one is losing their temper because my mom can't sprint 12km/hr to the elevators for breakfast.
This being said, anecdotally, it seems elder abuse is more the norm, simply because of compassion fatigue, so I suspect that even in however many years time, I'll be punched by a PSW for no good reason.
EZ-Cheeze
If you want to see what you will look like when you're older, stand in a spot and jump up and down repeatedly. Take photos (or pause a video recording) right at the moment after the lowest part of your jump. The upward acceleration will make your skin sag the way gravity will as your collagen weakens over decades.
But then again, by the time you're older you might look younger than you do now, e.g. "Ageing changes our genes – epigenetic atlas gives clearest picture yet (nature.com)" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45095532 (from the other day, no comments yet)
ge96
Or watch someone pull G forces in a plane (sim here but I had another vid in mind this one is better)
HSO
One thing you have to experience to really get it, that cannot be simulated with a mechanical suit or transmitted through words, is all the f-ing little aches you get past a certain point. I´m now convinced it is this that makes older people cranky. Some days, my body is just constantly in a low but annoying pain somewhere, and it seems in increasingly weird, obscure places you never even thought about. I dont even remember when or how it started but although I would be considered fit by most people, now I have to watch my running, otherwise ITBS, I have to watch my pull exercises, otherwise shoulder impingement syndrome, I have to watch my dips, otherwise elbows, hell even after just _sleeping_ I have to roll and stretch my neck out because it hurts just from lying apparently. I used to scoff about warmup, now I take it really, really seriously. "Going with the flow" of the moment, instead of sticking to a carefully dosed plan? That´s for young bodies! Thankfully I can still use my full range of motion everywhere but Im acutely aware now how quickly it can all go away and how long any overuse or even minor injury now costs me in recovery.
Getting older has its benefits too but mostly mental, in physical terms I cannot think of a single benefit.
Karrot_Kream
This is one of the big psychological benefits of being physically active. If you're fairly physically active, e.g. doing 60+ min of high heart rate cardio or intense anaerobic exercise a day, you'll always be sore somewhere. Maybe it's your thighs from yesterday's squats. Your lower back from a long run. Your elbow when you tried that dynamic move on a climb you've been projecting. And once you accept and embrace that minor pain you become a lot better at psychologically dealing with the small constant pain that comes with aging.
Also if you ever compete in a physical activity at more than just a "with your friends" level, you'll quickly find that whether you're 15 or 50 warming up makes a huge difference.
A lot of the problems of aging that I suspect folks today are facing are the problems of leading a fairly sedentary lifestyle.
munificent
There is a profound psychological difference between:
"My legs are sore from running yesterday but it means the muscles are getting stronger and I'll be healthy."
And:
"There is this weird twinge in my back. Did I sleep weird and it will be fine tomorrow? Or do I have to start doing more stretches and if I keep up with that forever, I can keep this pain at bay? Or does it mean that one of the vertebrae is starting to crack and if I don't go to the doctor soon enough and get surgery I'm going to end up paralyzed for life?"
Pain is easy. It's not knowing what the pain means that's hard.
Karrot_Kream
You can have the same feelings toward pain from physical activity. "Did I strain my shoulder in my workout or did I tear a ligament??" or "Are the ligaments in my foot sore from snowboarding or did I tear my ACL??" I used to be afraid of this kind of thing all the time when I first started being active. My general point is that regular physical activity gives you psychological faith in the resilience of the human body. Having done loads of activities and sports for over a decade now I am much more confident in my body's ability to bounce back from injury than I did when I was more sedentary and every ache and pain filled me with fear.
I think folks are really focusing on the "psychological" part of my comment in isolation and not the "problems of leading a fairly sedentary lifestyle" which is probably my fault because I don't think I structured my post well.
I think a lot of the problems that are associated with aging, such as minor aches and pains, are consequences of leading mostly sedentary lifestyles. Part of being fairly active (meaning well above most state-recommended guidelines) is the psychological resilience to pain that I mentioned. But also part of it is that because you are constantly pushing your physical abilities, the strain that comes from occasional bad movement as part of everyday life (sleeping badly, holding the faucet tap the wrong way, hitting your wrist on the corner of a table, etc) is usually well within the envelope of pushing yourself compared to your actual sport.
My greater point is that leading a sedentary lifestyle is a whole package of things. This includes the physiological consequences of not developing strength, flexibility, and joint elasticity; this also includes the psychological resistance to risk and pain that comes from being sedentary.
AngryData
That is an interesting idea and it follows some patterns I previously noticed with friends. The ones who are not or never were physically active are all complaining about aches and pains and acting like they are old men twice their age just doing basic household things. I kind of just chalked that up to them not being in shape, but it never really fully explained the extent of their complaints. However I grew up with a very physical life working on the farm and doing trade work since forever. By every measure I should be the one complaining about aches and pains and old injuries and such, but perhaps because im so accustomed to pains just from work and more intense physical activity the age related stuff just hasn't hit me hard enough to really notice like they do.
antisthenes
If you do it regularly, you won't be sore.
Soreness only comes initially once you are getting into the routine, or if you push yourself way beyond limits.
Noumenon72
I don't accept and embrace the minor pain, I treat exercise as a way to fix what I did wrong that led to the pain so I'm more resilient and don't develop it chronically. There are many aches I used to get (elbows while washing hands, hip socket, sleeping with my neck to the side) that are years in the past because I figured them out. I just realized right now that I haven't woken up with sore collarbones this year, which I can probably attribute to incline bench.
Cracks and pops are another case where constant introspection and following tips on TikTok has made many of them go away. The received wisdom is they're not proven harmful, but in my case they at least represent using muscles in wrong patterns that pull things off center.
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sdeframond
Not OP but it started happening to me a few years ago. I'm 37 now and it is slowly getting worse.
The only thing that keeps it at bay is regular exercise, both strength and mobility. I'm careful about running.
throwawaylaptop
I can't argue if it's 'healthy' or not, but anecdotal accounts say that going meat only cures most of these pains in about 30 days. I've tried it. 65 year old dad tried it. Coworkers and friends. It worked for everyone. No one has remained meat only, but it taught us all to watch what we eat like hawks.
brewdad
Not sure if "meat only" can be a cure-all but anecdotally, I feel better when I reduce my gluten intake. I've never been diagnosed with a wheat sensitivity but my son has been forced to go gluten free because of one. When he is home on school breaks, we eat gluten free and I do notice a difference in how I feel.
I'm not giving up beer or the once a month pizza anytime soon but I have made conscious decisions to reduce my overall gluten intake.
SlowTao
I mean, it is a hard line elimination diet. If you watch what happens with reintroduction, you can provably figure out where the issues are.
IAmGraydon
How old are you?
layman51
I think these kinds of aches start happening to a non-negligible number of people beginning in their early 30s. It isn’t that they can’t still be active, it’s just that they have to be diligent about warming up their joints before certain exercises, whereas before they may not have had to even consider warming up.
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tempestn
I'm not the parent, but could've written all the same (44).
IAmGraydon
I’m 43, and though I seem to get more injuries in the gym since I hit 40 (usually tendon overuse), I’ve noticed that proper nutrition and good sleep make a big difference in how my body feels. I also go to the gym at 5:30am and do an hour of free weight strength training 4 days per week.
If you guys are hurting all the time in your 40s, I would really advise you to do a full assessment of what you’re putting in your body and what kind of message you’re sending your body with your exercise routine. It might also be a good idea to get checked for markers of inflammation as well as testosterone levels. You should not have constant nagging pain at your age.
BubbleRings
And how much caffeine do you drink?
jkestner
One of my professors in undergrad pioneered research into the eldery’s interaction with the world. Not just the physiological, but sociological aspects — she got a makeup artist to disguise herself.
GratiaTerra
Geriatric simulation is interesting, but couldn't this also be applied to pediatric simulation for improved vision, hearing, strength and endurance? I don't see any show stoppers preventing the development of a youth-augmentation exosuit blending AR sensory augmentation, powered exoskeleton support, haptics, and AI adaptive controls.
Stevvo
I think you're missing the point. You use something like this to help in design/testing of accessible spaces. An exosuit can't cut you half to help you make better children's spaces.
GratiaTerra
Floating the idea of a youth simulator (like a VR app with integrated exosuit) could be used to measure physiological and cognitive age gaps. It might be valuable for science and medicine, but also for things like understanding empathy/social knowledge or understanding workflows/applied knowledge.
nonameiguess
Additionally, assuming you're not already geriatric, simulating it is the only way to experience it short of waiting. If you're an adult, you were already a kid at some point.
01HNNWZ0MV43FF
Just spitballing:
- Powered exoskeletons aren't quite "there"
- If moving at all is painful, having an exoskeleton move you will also be painful
- Haptics and AR aren't quite there either
- Batteries, it's always batteries
beezlewax
I tried on an obesity simulation suit once. It was designed for caregivers - with the goal of increasing empathy in mind. It was amazing how difficult ordinary tasks were.
snickerdoodle12
I'd be more interested in the other way around
ge96
Use it to make yourself stronger, break free like the running man in Animatrix
famahar
Love this reference. I think about this short a lot. Reaching an extreme level of peak physical performance that you break the constraints (code) of the world, causing a severe bug that crashes the program and reveals the reality of all things.
mwigdahl
Or Harrison Bergeron...
libria
Yeah, clickbait title for some of us. Should be "Advanced Age Simulation Suit".
OptionOfT
My initial thoughts too.
ilc
Amen.
clcaev
Alternatively, one might ask someone with those disabilities to provide feedback.
trhway
While i think we should do more things in that direction, it borders on human experimentation.
Btw, somebody should mention that Putin/Xi's talk about living to 150 years and the 70 being just a children age today (if you have state resources at your disposal).
philipov
Can I get a suit that simulates being 20 years old again?
xunil2ycom
I could have used this about 40 years ago.
The site is slow so I can't see it. I'm 68, eat well, lost 20 pounds, work out twice a week. Everything is working fine. But I live in a place surrounded by people in walkers, wheelchairs, or using canes. Some of them have had strokes or accidents making improvement hard, but many simply chose to not do anything to avoid the aging. You don't ordinarily wind up with a walker at a single point; it often starts many years or even decades earlier when you failed to keep in decent physical shape. I almost started too late (last couple of years), I can see how easy it is to not notice your physical being slowly going down. But assuming no major injury or disease, you can improve your body at almost any age, a little at a time, and avoid or at least postpone physical aging for quite a while.
I also write code daily, read the same things I read when I worked, thus keep my brain going too. You can't ignore body or mind, you have to keep both in tune.
I am still getting older, but I am in better shape than I was before I retired. The last time I felt as fit was when I was still playing basketball 30+ years ago.
Don't wait, it's easier to do a little for decades than wait until it's almost too late.