Every year I ask my students, “How old is old?” The answers vary, but the most honest response I’ve ever received came from a patient who said, “Old is 10 years older than my age.” We all tend to push aging just out of reach, as though it belongs to someone else.
As a physical therapist, professor and researcher in aging, I see the consequences of that distance every day. When we mentally place older adults in a separate category, we give ourselves permission to speak and act in ways that quietly do harm. We call someone an “old lady” without pause. We dismiss a symptom as “expected at your age.” We offer the well-meaning but quietly deflating compliment that someone is doing well “for their age.” Each of these small moments narrows what we believe is possible for that person.
This is ageism. Generally unintentional, ever-present in our society.
The problem is not acknowledging that aging brings real changes. It does. Health conditions, pain, and mobility challenges become more common with age, but not in some uniform pattern that warrants focus on a number. The problem is when age becomes the answer rather than the starting point. When decline is the expectation, we stop asking about goals, we stop noticing strengths and we start designing lives around an assumed limitation.
Consider a common piece of advice: move to a single-story home as you grow older. It sounds reasonable. But research tells a more nuanced story. Studies have found that those living in homes with stairs showed less decline in physical function over time compared to those without. Climbing stairs is demanding, repetitive physical work for the legs and heart. Removing that daily challenge in the name of safety may quietly accelerate the very decline we hope to prevent.
This pattern holds more broadly. Research consistently shows that vigorous exercise, not just gentle stretching or slow walks, produces the greatest health benefits as we age. Higher-intensity activity improves strength, balance, heart health and cognitive function in people well into their 80s and 90s. When we steer older adults toward only the lightest, most cautious forms of movement, we deprive them of the very stimulus their bodies need. In trying to protect, we inadvertently take away opportunity.
Language works the same way. When family members, neighbors and health care providers speak as though decline is inevitable, we coach people toward caution, avoidance and withdrawal. Expectation shapes behavior, and low expectations are their own kind of harm.
The answer is not to ignore age or pretend it doesn’t matter. It is to treat aging as a human experience, seeing a person not as a number but as an individual with unique aspirations, interests and abilities.
None of us are exempt from aging. We are all just at different points on the same road. The assumptions we make about older adults today are the assumptions that may one day be made about us. That alone is reason enough to think more carefully about what we say, what we recommend, and what we decide is possible with each passing year.
Dr. Jordre is a professor of physical therapy in the School of Health Sciences at the University of South Dakota. She earned her Doctor of Physical Therapy degree from Duke University in 2002 and her Ph.D. in Health Sciences from the University of South Dakota in 2021. She is board certified in Geriatric Physical Therapy and is a Certified Exercise Expert for Aging Adults. Her research centers on healthy aging, with a
particular focus on athletes age 50 and older. Follow The Prairie Doc® at www.prairiedoc.org, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Tik Tok. Prairie Doc Programming includes On Call with the Prairie Doc®, a medical Q&A show (most Thursdays at 7pm on YouTube and streaming on Facebook), 2 podcasts, and a Radio program (on SDPB, Sundays at 6am and 1pm).
