The film: 'Coming of Age in Aging America'. Watch it. Soon.

Watching this film will take an hour or so of your life. It is time well spent. Do it soon since I think it will only be available until the end of July 2017.

Hopefully this link will take you to the Vimeo video. If that doesn't work you can read about it on Next Avenue.

The content of the film asks most of the right questions about the impact of increased longevity and provides some outline answers.

What I most liked about it was it stripped away the sugar-coating of ageing that so often happens. Watch any of the keynote speakers at the mega ageing events in the US and you will see the converted talking to the converted about a small subset of the older age cohort. You know, the stereotype baby boomer.

This film doesn't fall into that trap. It tells it pretty much as it is. Lots of opportunities alongside the reality, for many, of living longer without enough money and good health.

It was nice, but a little disappointing, to see some old favourites like the Agnes the ageing suit and Ms. Daisy the car simulator that I first wrote about in 2011. 

Hopefully the guys at MIT AgeLab are working on something new? Maybe not.

To be honest the programme raised in my mind a lot of questions that are not connected to ageing but about the state of the US economy and the simplistic assumptions we have about demographics. Maybe I will cover these topics another day.

Do watch the film. It will bring you back to the real nitty gritty of what increasing longevity means and maybe it will stimulate some new ideas about opportunities in the ageing business. Dick Stroud