If you’ve ever had a doctor brush off your symptoms as “just aging” without asking follow-up questions, or talk to a caregiver or younger companion instead of directly to you, you may have experienced ageism in health care. 

One in 7 Americans age 50 and older say they have, AARP researchers have discovered. When providers make assumptions based on age, as opposed to following clinical guidelines, it can result in older adults being misunderstood or misdiagnosed when they need health care.

In collaboration with the Gerontological Society of America, AARP launched a training program last year to help future health professionals recognize and stop age-based bias. Tested at 13 universities across the country with about 500 students, the program uses health care scenarios and practical tools that remind providers to listen first and treat people as individuals, not stereotypes.

The class asked students to explore their reactions to depictions of older patients, then encouraged them to listen to those patients and make care decisions based on those practices. It gave students steps they can take to prioritize patients’ mental health needs, prevent falls and monitor medication side effects.

Students took short surveys before and after participating. After the lecture, 72 percent said it was “extremely important” to learn about ageism in their field of study, compared with 48 percent before the class. And nearly 9 in 10 said they were motivated to make a change in their behavior going forward, to reduce ageism in health care.

We are expanding the program this year by training at least 250 instructors who teach classes that encourage careers in health professions.

AARP is working in other ways to align care with what matters to older adults and their family caregivers:

• We are fighting to ensure older adults are fully represented in health research so decisions are based on evidence, not assumptions about age.
• We advocate for fairer standards of care for emergencies because age-based criteria can lead to older adults being denied lifesaving treatment.
• And we support changes to the way Medicare funds medical education so more health care workers have the knowledge to treat older patients.

Additionally, AARP has pushed for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to allow Medicare to cover essential training for family caregivers. And we fought for a measure to assess hospitals’ commitment to improving care for older patients. We also collaborated with the Geriatric Emergency Department Collaborative to train ER personnel to recognize dementia symptoms.

AARP believes everyone deserves to be taken seriously when it comes to their health. By changing how we train providers and shape policy, we are ensuring that older adults are treated with the dignity, attention and care they deserve.