Old before her time to make a point

Patricia Moore at Victoria University and in full prosthesis. Picture (L) / Mark Mitchell

In her twenties posing as an 80-year-old, Dr Patricia Moore was beaten, mugged, and ignored.

"It was as if I didn't exist in the eyes of younger people. People were very dismissive," she said. "Telling older people they have to act younger to be accepted is a hideous thing. It's like telling a person of colour they have to be more white to be accepted."

For four years Dr Moore, an internationally renowned gerontologist and designer, posed in full prosthetic costume as an 80-year-old in 116 cities throughout Canada and America.

She has since taken her message around the world to challenge the perception that "old is a four-letter word", and is touring New Zealand design schools to persuade students to make products with the elderly in mind.

The motivation for her research came from her days as an industrial designer in New York, when her colleagues shunned her idea of making a fridge that catered for the elderly.

Her first assignment as an old woman was at an architects' conference on building better homes for the elderly.

"I showed up, and people ignored me, doors were let go in my face, nobody invited me to sit and have tea ... [for my research] I was thrilled.

"We were eliminated as consumers, there were no products or services that catered for the elderly. So these people who had a great gift of many years were defined as unimportant, and that's a tragedy."

But she said the tide was slowly turning, if only because baby-boomer numbers cannot be ignored and will soon be a lucrative market.

"There's profit to be made. In the advertising community, we're starting to get images of elders, women in their 50s with wrinkles, and that's okay as it's viewed as the new beauty. It's a global trend.

"People should be treated equally, regardless of age."

But she admits people's attitudes still have a long way to go.

"One of the things that makes me most despondent is that elder abuse is much worse than it was. I was mugged twice when I was in character.

"The last time it was a gang, like a pack of wild animals. I heard the running behind me, and I felt an arm around my throat and someone punching me in the back. And all I could think was, 'They're going to kill me'.

"Then I heard a little kid say, 'that's enough', and they ran off. Then I heard a man's voice say, 'I've got you', and he brought me to a hospital."

She was severely injured and haemorrhaging.

And though the incident robbed her of a chance to bear children, she feels richer for the experience.

"I'm looking forward to being 80 years old myself. But if I don't get that far, in a way I already have.

"I wouldn't have changed a thing. I realised the powerful experience of sharing with an audience my experience of being abused as an elder. To help people understand how others feel unworthy or worthless, that becomes the basis of a global charter where no one feels that they don't belong."