Don't call people 'old' until death is near, says gerontologist

Sarah Harper, director of Oxford Institute of Ageing, suggests people in their 70s and 80s should be considered active adults

People should not be called old until they are seriously frail, dependent and approaching death, one of the UK's leading social scientists has told Hay festival.

Sarah Harper, a gerontologist who is director of the Oxford Institute of Ageing, proposed a different approach to the language we use about ageing, suggesting that people in their 60s and possibly 70s and 80s should still be considered active adults.