I did eldercare for my mother for over seven years.  It was so hard that I became ill myself, but now I am better.  I was looking to resurrect my own life again after Mother died, but now at 66 I find that I am discounted in jobs and at any situation whereby someone KNOWS my age.  When people are left to "guess," they don't even know if I could qualify for "senior" in a restaurant meal, but I have found that people in their 20s and "young" in general have become obsessed about age, as have too many older people.  They scrutinize and wheedle to find out one's age and then become condescending if they know you are "older than you look."  They infuriate me.  I was never taught to think in such a way. --  And I am most disgusted at all the advertising and "public spotlight" about "Alzheimer's" and possibilities that people may be prone, finding problems earlier in life, and even convincing people that they are having "senior moments" when they are experiencing NOTHING DIFFERENT FROM WHAT A 20-YEAR OLD EXPERIENCES.  E.g., I was eating at a restaurant and thinking about this, talking to a waiter about age 20.  He was busy and stressed, but friendly, so I asked him, "Armando, what day of the week is it?"  He did NOT know -- "Maybe Wednesday, no, I think Thursday, no, I think Tuesday."  I asked him what day of the month it was.  He was not even close.  He had a lot on his mind, such as a move that was supposed to come up to a different city and all the tasks and chores that he felt overwhelmed with.  I said, "Armando, do you realize you are having 'senior moments' right now?"  When I explained to him what I meant, he said, "Oh, yeah, it's terrible how society discriminates vs. older people, attributing everything like this that they do to so me sort of brain disintegration.  Your question is very apropos."

In the media I see nothing but de facto derogation of older people.  The "medical model" of health has always been one of a sort of living corpse -- we just keep looking for more and more that's "wrong" and then try to "fix" it.

This is seriously hurting those of us who are fit and alert as ever, in fact maybe more mature and at the prime of our lives (as in my case, whereby I lost my 50s entirely to eldercare -- I would not, could not leave my mother in the nightmarish "nursing homes" I saw -- they are a disgrace in American society).  I now want to publish what I didn't get a chance to because I gave my time to eldercare, and I get along in a pub with 20-year olds better than "old-codger" types. 

I think how we age is a function of our personalities to a great extent -- not just some state of brain physiology. 

But the discrimination vs. those of us who are older and fit and well and have a lot to contribute is being STOKED by the sorts of material on this website and those foolish enough to be convinced they need to start looking for "old age symptoms" in their 40s!

Shame on all who perpetrate this.

I am ready to start an "anti-aging support group" for the majority of us who are just before Baby Boomers or Boomers and "aren't going to take this B.S."

I am stuck now in unemployment and poverty -- because when people see the years in which I received my degrees and the number of jobs I have they are overwhelmed and just "programmed" to flip out my resume -- "He can just be a greeter at Wal-Mart" is what I think many of them think.  It's really a terrible thing.

This caricaturizing those over 50 or 60 MUST STOP.