Biomedicalization of Aging

The tendency, identified by critical gerontologists, to reduce the complexity of later life to problems of physical and cognitive decline requiring medical or technological intervention. Biomedicalization frames older adults as patients rather than citizens, and positions technology — from monitoring wearables to VR reminiscence — as therapeutic rather than expressive or social. Recognising this framing is important for accessibility practitioners designing with older adults, because it reliably produces interventions that older adults refuse or abandon.