It is therefore crucial to ensure that older persons have every opportunity to remain active. Just as health sustains activity, it is an active life that stands the best chance of being a healthy one. The more active they are, the more they can contribute to society. Thus countries should recognize healthy ageing as a key factor for their development agenda, and should see their ageing populations not as a problem but as a potential solution to problems. Too often discussed merely in terms of their unmet needs, elderly populations should be seen first and foremost as a resource to be used.
Older people are all the same.
In reality, the longer people live, the more diverse the elderly population becomes. Men and women age in the same way. In reality there are very significant differences, though it is only recently that research has started to focus on ageing from a gender perspective. Older people are frail. In reality the vast majority of older people remain physically fit well into later life.