The age-old question.... how can we learn to make the most of later life?

OLD age isn’t what it used to be. There was a time, not that long ago, when if you lived more than 10 years after you retired you had done well. But nowadays it’s not uncommon for people to live an active life for a further 20, or 30 years after they finish working.

Earlier this year, the Office for National Statistics produced a study saying that a third of babies born this year in the UK were likely to reach 100, meaning tens of thousands more people will live to see this milestone. But people aren’t just living longer, they’re also staying active for longer. Nigel Hague, father of the Foreign Secretary William Hague, has made a name for himself doing daredevil stunts to raise money for charity. Last year, the 83 year-old, from North Yorkshire, completed a tandem skydive and in May he performed a breathtaking wing-walk to raise funds for the NSPCC.

He’s not the only one flying the flag for the older generation. Last month, 92 year-old Elaine Morgan won the columnist of the year prize at the Regional Press Awards, with judges praising her “beautifully crafted” articles, while Betty Smith, 90, and Beryl Renwick, 86, made national headlines after winning a Sony Radio Award for the best entertainment programme with their weekly show on BBC Radio Humberside.

Such heart warming tales give hope that old age doesn’t have to be something to fear. That said, more than half our population is over the age of 50 and a new study by the British Red Cross, published yesterday, reveals there are increased levels of isolation among the elderly, as well as more falls and accidents. It highlights, too, concerns about social care support and the growing numbers of people that are going to need it in the future.

The question of old age and how we look after elderly people isn’t a new one, but at a research centre in Sheffield, teams of designers and health experts are looking at ways of improving the lives of older people. Lab4Living is a collaboration, set up in 2008, between the art and design department and social care research centre at Sheffield Hallam University.

Professor Paul Chamberlain, Lab4Living design director, says getting older shouldn’t be seen as a negative thing. “Old age has been presented to some extent as a problem to society, but we’ve tried to approach it differently and say ‘actually, it’s not a bad thing’.” Instead, it’s about providing dignity and independence for older people. “Medical intervention now means we can sustain life for longer than ever before, but what people want is quality of life.”

He believes the next generation will have different aspirations and expectations from the current one. “It’s a generalisation, but today’s older generation are more easily pleased, they’ve lived through hard times, they’ve been through the war and rations. Many people we spoke to remember growing up with a tin bath in front of the fire and a toilet at the bottom of the garden, so anything is better than that. But the next generation will expect more, they want spas and a level of comfort which they’ve become used to.”

The Lab4Living team works with groups of older people from Sheffield to help them understand some of the physical challenges that face the elderly so they can come up with better designs for everything from chairs to jam jars.

“We have experience of working with industry but we also need to know what people need rather than what the industry thinks they need, so we treat them as experts because they know what it’s like being old.”

They adopted this approach with their bathroom project where they trained pensioners to carry out research in their local communities through talking to their peers. “The bathroom traditionally was seen as something purely functional, but they have changed and now they’re places where people can relax and unwind.”

Bathrooms can also be dangerous places, especially for older people. But what difference can the design of a toilet or a bath make to someone’s wellbeing? “If you’re talking about independence, dignity and quality of life, the bathroom is the number one reason why an older person will have to move out of their house. So if people have a bathroom that fits their needs it means they are more likely to stay in their house longer, which means they might not have to go into a care home, which, in turn, has a knock-on effect in terms of saving the country money,” says Prof Chamberlain.

So far Lab4Living has helped come up with more than 500 products that are now being developed in the UK. “Academia has a reputation for doing projects that end up as journals gathering dust on bookshelves, but much of our work is applied research and we try and take what we learn and make a difference to the outside world.”

Food packaging is another area the design team is working on and have recently come up with new jam jar lid. This might not sound very important, but try telling that to a pensioner who can’t open one. “We probably all have problems opening jars, but it’s a particular challenge for older people. For some people who have arthritis and live on their own, if they can’t open a jar it might mean they don’t eat that night, so it’s got massive implications,” says Claire Craig, occupational therapist and Lab4Living researcher.

Recycling can also be a challenge for older people. “It’s an issue because people have to take out these big wheelie bins on time each week and it’s difficult in somewhere like Sheffield with its hills, because getting your bin out becomes hard work,” says Prof Chamberlain.

Local authorities provide a service for old people so that people come into their homes and take the rubbish away for them, but this is both costly and time-consuming. “It’s been calculated that within 10 years the number of old people in Sheffield will mean they’ll have to put twice as many trucks on the road and the cost of these extra trucks outweighs the benefits of collecting for recycling.”

Which is why a solution is needed. “If you’ve been the main bread winner you want to protect your wife, but as you get older suddenly you can’t do these fundamental jobs that you’ve always done and that can be really difficult. So we have someone working on a better designed bin that will make it easier for older people to put their rubbish out themselves.”

Household designs can also play a role in the battle against dementia. “People think about dementia in terms of memory loss but one of the biggest problems is a lack of recognition. So when we see a chair we know what it is, but for someone with dementia if that’s the part of their brain that has been affected they won’t recognise it as a chair and they won’t know what to do with it. So a verbal or a visual prompt can act as a reminder.”

As a result they have designed wooden chairs with the words “sit” and “chair” on them. “We showed this at one of our exhbitions and someone came over and said it would be perfect for her husband. So we know that design is an integral part of helping people with dementia.”

Part of the Lab4Living ethos is to overcome some of the stigmas associated with old age. “There are people in their 80s who play basketball now which wouldn’t have happened in the past, so the idea of ‘what is old?’ is changing,” says Prof Chamberlain.

“People are living longer, but if those last 20 years are a painful existence it puts huge demands on the health service that we all have to pay for. So what we’re looking at is ways of keeping people out of care and out of hospital for as long as possible.”

Craig agrees. “If you can create better quality of life then that period of dependency will be much shorter. Some of it relates to lifestyle and if you can design things that promotes an active lifestyle and independence it’s not inevitable that this decline will happen. Something like 75 per cent is non-genetic in terms of ageing – it’s about adding life to years and not years to life.”

Lab4living projects

The bathroom project is about improving the quality and design of bathroom furniture for older and disabled people. This three- year project is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

The SMART project looks at the scope, effectiveness and appropriateness of systems to support home-based rehabilitation for stroke patients and their carers.

Packaging research. Ageing brings with it a host of issues including reduced strength, dexterity and cognition. The issue of packaging accessibility, particularly with regards to older people, is one of those specific areas and an issue that Lab4Living is investigating.