Older Americans may need a wheelchair or hearing aids. Just don't call them 'disabled'

In her house in Ypsilanti, Michigan, Mrs Barbara Meade said: "There are walkers and wheelchairs and oxygen cannulas all over the place.

- Paula Span

The 82-year-old has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, so a portable oxygen tank accompanies her everywhere. Spinal stenosis limits her mobility, necessitating the walkers and wheelchairs and considerable help from her husband, Mr Dennis Meade, who serves as her primary caregiver.

"I know I need hearing aids," Mrs Meade added. "My hearing is horrible." She acquired a pair a few years ago, but rarely uses them.

Mr Meade, 86, is more mobile, despite arthritis pain in one knee, but contends with his own hearing problems. Similarly dissatisfied with the hearing aids he once bought, he said: "I just got to the point where I say, 'Talk louder."

But if you ask either of them a question included on a recent University of Michigan survey - "Do you identify as having a disability?" - the Meades answer promptly: No, they don't.

Disability "means you can't do things", Mr Meade said. "As long as you can work with it and it's not affecting your life that much, you don't consider yourself disabled."

Their daughter Michelle Meade, a rehabilitation psychologist and the director of the Center for Disability Health and Wellness at the university, accompanies her parents to medical appointments and tends to roll her eyes at their reluctance to acknowledge needing support.

Working with other researchers on the recent national poll has shown her how often older adults feel that they are not disabled despite ample evidence to the contrary.

The survey looked at nearly 3,000 Americans aged 50 and older and found that only a minority - fewer than 18 per cent of participants over 65 - saw themselves as having a disability.

Yet their responses to the six questions that the Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS) uses to track disability rates told a different story.