OLDER PEOPLE are still widely viewed as "social casualties" who are expected to live withdrawn and passive lives, according to the founder of an international organisation which encourages lifelong learning.
Dr Eric Midwinter, founder of the University of the Third Age, told a conference in Dublin organised as part of Positive Ageing Week that society's view of older people was caught in a "time warp".
"The cultural value of oldness as illness lags behind the reality of many older people - not all, but many - being hale and hearty. The very words we use - 'retirement', 'pension' - suggest withdrawal and passivity," he said.
"Older people often stop doing things they regard as inappropriate to their age, one of the contributing factors to the clinically-affirmed 'fitness gap', the chasm that opens up as one grows older between what we can do and what we do do."
Dr Midwinter said one of the relatively few projects attempting to reverse this process was the University of the Third Age. He said the organisation's aim was to demonstrate that older people could run their own affairs and that they should be perceived as active providers, not passive recipients, of services.