Ben Smith’s body ached. His vision was yellowed and farsighted. He hunched as he walked and his legs and arms felt stiff.

While the 41-year-old architect is in fine health, an age-simulating suit called Age Explorer showed the architect what limitations his body might encounter when he enters his 70s and beyond.

Ben Ives, a sales representative for Blum, a company that designs furniture fittings with aging in mind, was visiting Ascent Architecture and Interiors in downtown Bend. Ives had asked Smith, a volunteer among a dozen attendees, to pull on the Age Explorer. It’s a white jumpsuit that resembles a straitjacket crossed with a hazmat suit. Ives’ assistant rounded out Smith’s outfit by applying a visor similar to a welding mask and sound-reducing headphones to his head.

“You look like an elderly astronaut,” a coworker told Smith, who is a project coordinator at the firm.

People snickered.

As Smith moved about, elbow restraints and weights totaling 13 pounds produced the sensation of arthritic stiffening of the joints and diminished muscle mass. Ives ran Smith through a series of simple tasks to demonstrate how aging complicates the mundane. Picking out a purple paper clip from a colorful pile took a minute. Smith sifted through them before holding one up.

“No, Ben. That paper clip is red,” Ives said. “Try again.”

Another attempt produced another red clip. His thumb and index finger had trouble meeting, and Velcro inside the gloves made his hands tingly. Later, he fumbled to reach an overhead ledge where Ives had tasked him to grab a bottle of aspirin.

“I wasn’t feeling that good anyway,” Smith said.

About 1 in 8 Americans lives with a mobility disability — a wide-ranging group from those with arthritis to those who are paralyzed, according to a 2015 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In Oregon, 11 percent of nearly 6,000 respondents reported a mobility disability — the second most common one after a cognitive disability. Blum, based in Austria, has its researchers wear the suit for 2-hour bouts so they can experience firsthand what someone in advanced age goes through in opening and closing a cabinet, for example, said Blum spokesperson Karen Smith.

“It’s pretty eye-opening,” said Karen Smith, who has tried on the Age Explorer suit. “It made me want to go to the gym.”

Inspiring empathy

Aging suits, which are designed with the goal of inspiring appreciation in the wearer for the inevitable decline of the human body, have been used for decades across a variety of industries. Japanese carmaker Nissan began experimenting with aging suits in the late 1990s when designing car interiors with the elderly in mind, according to Reuters. Aging suits, just like the people who wear them, come in a variety of shapes and sizes. The Age Explorer suit, which costs $10,000, was developed by the Meyer-Hentschel Institute in Germany in 1994. Blum, which has a subsidiary in North Carolina, ships the Age Explorer suit across the country so regional sale representatives, like Ives, can use them in their demonstrations. It’s one of the more low-frills aging suits available. Others, such as the Genworth R70i, make their wearers look like Robocop. It features adjustable controls that alter dexterity and an augmented reality visor that can instantaneously simulate conditions like macular degeneration or glaucoma.

Affording freedom

Some of Blum’s cabinets, which Ives brought along, are self-opening and closing and can swing up or down for easy access. To figure out which designs are best, Blum designers wear aging suits to better conceptualize designs that will work for its customers.

“(The elderly) may not be the most ‘in,’ hip group of people to work with,” Ives said. “But they have the most disposable income.”

With that income, the elderly prolong their freedom, Ives said.

“A lot of them don’t want to go to assisted living; they want to stay in their homes. Items will cost a little bit more money, but they’re willing to part with that because it’s their freedom they’ll give up if they go into assisted living.”

Ives is trying to sell Blum to Ascent Architecture; what he doesn’t have to sell them on is an appreciation for accessibility in design. Founded in 2014, Ascent Architecture got its start by designing assisted and independent living buildings, Smith said. The two areas of the home that are often remodeled for accessibility are the kitchen and the bathroom.

“We design homes that will allow people to age in place,” Smith said.

The company also designs assisted living facilities, such as Trinity Lutheran Senior Living, which will be breaking ground on Bend’s northeast side in the near future.

An eye-opener

Travis Smith, a fellow project coordinator who is not related to Ben Smith, was next to try on the aging suit. He has firsthand experience with aging. When Travis Smith was a boy, he helped his parents care for his grandfather, who was rendered bedridden by rheumatoid arthritis. His grandmother also spent her latter years under his family’s care. The experiences inspired the work Travis Smith does. Still, trying on an aging suit for the first time takes the guesswork out of it.

“We’re on the young side, and we might forget to put drawers instead of doors in lower cabinets, for instance,” Travis Smith said. “The aging suit helped me remember that, bending down and reaching deeply into the back of a cabinet (with doors), it’s harder to do than pulling out a drawer.”

Ives’ assistant fitted the visor onto Travis Smith’s head.

“This will affect the way you perceive color,” she said. “This is going to give you a little bit of tunnel vision.”

Travis Smith was impressed.

Having worn glasses since college, Travis Smith worried about how his vision might deteriorate over time. He also said the distorted vision, which muddied one’s color spectrum — yellow, green and maroon — made him consider which color schemes to incorporate in his design work — and to make features, such as knobs and handles, larger.

“Having a more educated stance on a design element — down to the details of the interior environment — will definitely help us,” Travis Smith said.

That deeper comprehension is at the heart of the Age Explorer suit, Ives said, and helps Blum design furniture fittings with aging in mind.

“Having an understanding of what (the elderly) go through on a daily basis helps design for them and their needs,” Ives said. “Maybe not for their needs now, but for their needs in the future.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7816, pmadsen@bendbulletin.com