050 Chapter 5 Impact of the age awareness workshop You can’t think of all 90-year-olds as frail and tired and not able to do much for themselves because there are certainly 90-year-olds who are still living on their own. —Participants, age 61+ (c) Impact of age stereotypes on interactions with older adults Attitudes and beliefs about ageing and older age can influence how we perceive and interact with older adults – whether consciously or unconsciously. For example, research has found that in healthcare settings, clinicians’ age-based assumptions and stereotypes about older patients can result in them being denied access to treatments and procedures, and excluded from clinical trials.88 Such bias is often unintentional and occurs without conscious awareness by the person who holds the view. For those working in aged care and community settings, stereotypical beliefs about ageing and older adults can influence their interactions with the older clients they support. Reflecting on their past interactions with older clients, participants discussed instances where their attitudes and behaviours had been influenced by stereotypical beliefs about older age and older adults – for example, providing assistance without being asked, communicating differently, taking control, and offering or not offering certain activities or programs. When we talk about older people, [the words] ‘weak’ and ‘frail’ come to mind … Sometimes we might offer more help than what they want or need. We might not respect their capabilities … yeah, we do sometimes offer help before people ask for it. —Participant, age <40 Sometimes when I meet older people, they look really frail and they don’t move very well. So you tend to think maybe the mind is [also] not well when it really hasn’t changed … so you can be sort of talking down to them when you don’t really need to. —Participant, age 40–51 I probably try to take more control and fix the issues that I see. I would say [to a client], ‘We need to do A, B, and C …’ because that is my solution to their problem. —Participant, age 46 We were making choices about our service delivery based on assumptions about our client population, over 80% [of whom] are over 65 [years of age]. One example is that the clinic can send out text reminders of appointments and our team didn’t, because the assumption was that the majority of our clients wouldn’t use a mobile phone or know how to respond to a text message to confirm … because of their age. —Participant, mixed age group