Permission slip signed. Brown bag lunch packed. This week we dusted off our JanSport and headed out on our first Gray Monster field trip. Remember the class trip at the end of 8th grade? Same level of excitement. We visited the MIT AgeLab and spent nearly two hours with its founder, Dr. Joe Coughlin.  

Not saying you should copy anyone’s homework (that’s not going to get you to Cambridge), but we are sharing our notes below if you want to take a peek.

🩺 A new piece in the APA Monitor sheds light on medical assistance in dying (MAiD), a patient-centered option increasingly discussed for end-of-life care.

📌 Senators Jacky Rosen (D‑NV) and Bill Cassidy (R‑LA) have introduced the Lowering Costs for Caregivers Act—a bipartisan push to let adult children use pre-tax HSAs and FSAs for medical expenses related to caregiving (including costs for aging parents). AARP supports this change as a practical step to ease the financial pressure caregivers can face.

❤️ After losing her husband, a Georgia-based widow, (known as @donnac41 on TikTok) turned a shared tradition, pre-bed snacktime, into daily videos that comfort thousands. Using food, stories, and some Southern charm, she honors their routine and connects with others. In just four months, she’s earned 200K+ followers and more than a million likes.

Do you like apples? Well, we went to MIT. How do you like them apples? Okay, so not the right movie quote nor the correct school, but this past week, we took a field trip to the other college in Cambridge. And while Ben Affleck and Matt Damon were absent, Chris Hemsworth has connections and we think Massachusetts Institute of Technology AgeLab’s founder, Dr. Joe Coughlin and his co-stars colleagues should be famous for their important work.

CliffsNotes

Think big brains meet big empathy. The MIT AgeLab is where engineers, designers, psychologists, and policy geeks come together to rethink how we age and how we care. The AgeLab partners with businesses, government agencies, and nonprofits to improve lives for older adults and the people caring for them.

They’re not just talking flying cars for seniors (though… maybe). They use systems and real-world research to help industries, from finance to fashion to transportation, innovate for an aging population. 

Type of Work: Research and Innovation 

Setting: MIT’s Center for Transportation and Logistics

Opened: 1999

Main Character: Dr. Joe Coughlin MIT AgeLab founder, researcher, teacher, author, AARP board member, and bowtie aficionado.

Major Symbols: Autonomous vehicle, AGNES, robots, books

Summary:

🧓 AGNES (the Age Gain Now Empathy System) is the AgeLab’s empathy suit designed to help caregivers step into the physical reality of someone in their 80s, complete with reduced strength, stiff joints, blurred vision, and instability. By donning AGNES, caregivers gain visceral insight into the daily hurdles their loved ones face, awareness that sharpens attentiveness, builds compassion, and refines care design. The suit even made a cameo on the Disney+ docuseries Limitless with Chris Hemsworth. In the final episode, Hemsworth wears a custom-fitted version and quickly learns that aging isn't something he can just muscle through. His initial frustration (“this suit sucks, by the way”) gives way to acceptance, adaptation, and empathy.

🚗 We couldn’t drive Miss Daisy but we did get behind the wheel and touch every button they let us. Miss Daisy is the AgeLab’s uber-realistic driving simulator built inside a cherry-red Volkswagen Beetle mounted on a motion platform. It lets researchers test how real-world factors like meds, distractions, and automation affect older drivers’ reaction speeds, cognitive load, and safety by tracking eye movement, pulse, skin response, and more. Research from Miss Daisy helps auto industry designers and policymakers prototype in‑car tech that aging adults can actually use, safely. 

🏡 Home isn’t just where you lay your head, it’s where life gets managed, supported, and sometimes saved. The MIT AgeLab breaks the taxonomy of home automation into five levels:

Traditional Homes (Level 1): Your standard wired-and-plugged house equipped with lights, appliances and maybe an electric heater. No brains, just power.

Customizable Homes (Level 2): Programmed setups where residents define rules ("turn on coffee at 7 a.m.") using interconnected devices. Not quite smart, but obedient.

Networked Homes (Level 3): Devices talk to each other via Wi‑Fi, Bluetooth, etc. creating primitive automation but needing you to teach the logic. Limited understanding; basic interoperability. 

Proactive Homes (Level 4): Homes start predicting your needs. AI or cloud-based systems detect habits, adjust routines, coordinate safety, health, even deliveries. It’s tech that senses your lifestyle and adapts accordingly.

Companion Homes (Level 5): Full-blown living assistants. Homes that understand your emotions, anticipate needs, even include robotic agents for chores or companionship. Fully integrated with smart cities, healthcare providers, and services.

Redefining the definition of smart homes and thinking of it as more than just a place to age, it’s a partner. 

Analysis:

The MIT AgeLab challenged us to see aging not as decline, but as a design problem begging for better solutions. One that demands curiosity, compassion, and systems built for real life, not just best-case scenarios. And by innovating for older adults, those who care for them get a much needed advancement too. 

Helpful care-focused finds we’ve identified and researched so you don’t have to. 

Is it even a field trip without a souvenir? Lucky for you, Amazon sells the one we scooped up. The MIT AgeLab, Longevity Hubs: Regional Innovation for Global Aging offers case studies from cities around the globe—Boston, Milan, São Paulo, Tel Aviv—and shows how these places are redefining caregiving, independent living, and age-inclusive design. With essays from entrepreneurs, policymakers, and designers, the book reveals how communities can build systems that support older adults with dignity, autonomy, and innovation.

Love Longevity Hubs as much as we do? Score some extra credit by reading Dr. Joe’s earlier work, The Longevity Economy, which reframes aging as a major societal opportunity rather than a looming cost.