Ageing opens up opportunities for engineers

A new Institution of Mechanical Engineers report, 21st Century Engineering for an Ageing Population, makes five recommendations about how engineering and engineers could play a role in making life easier for older users.

“The number of people living past 85 is set to double in the next 20 years, so there is an increasingly pressing need for government and industry to step up their efforts to cater for older users,” said report author Professor Garth Johnson, an ageing expert at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers’ Biomedical Engineering Association.

“More work should be done to promote innovation for older user-friendly products and companies should consider harnessing the expertise of older or retired engineers when developing household products, vehicles or other devices for mainstream use,” he added in a statement.

“Sometimes relatively minor adjustments can make a huge difference, for example clearer public signage or grab handles, but in the future driverless cars and robots in the home could allow older people to live more mobile or independent lives for longer.”