Designers need to overcome deep-rooted stereotypes and take on the challenges presented by ageing populations, says Jeremy Myerson, curator of the New Old exhibition that just opened at London's Design Museum.

Unless you've spent the last decade living in a cave, you will know that every developed nation now has a rapidly ageing population. This demographic shift towards a society in which there are large numbers of older people and decreasing numbers of young people offers both challenges and opportunities for designers.
Across Europe, half the population will be over 50 by 2020. In the UK, 70 per cent of population growth over the next 25 years will be in the over-60 age group and it is predicted that half of all children born today will live to be 103. Our life expectancy at birth has increased by five years in the past 20, so more years are a given for most us. This longer lifespan is the direct result of factors including falling mortality rates, better diet and advances in medical science, and should be something to celebrate. Instead we persist in seeing population ageing as a demographic time bomb, a disaster waiting to happen. Every year in winter, at a time of annual crisis in Britain's overflowing hospitals, the headlines about elderly people clogging up the care system reignite all the old, negative arguments.
Longer lifespan should be something to celebrate. Instead we persist in seeing population ageing as a demographic time bomb
The wider question, of c...