LONDON — Old age awaits all of us, as much as we might not consider it, and it brings a number of challenges with it.

Ford has been using a special "age suit," made up of goggles, ear muffs, a weighted jacket and arm and leg braces, to simulate some of the effects of ageing and inform its car design.

The full-body suit reduces vision, restricts joints and muscles, and replicates hand tremors and back pain, allowing the company's designers to approach their work from the viewpoint of someone with restricted mobility.

The carmaker let Mashable try out the suit, as part of its Unlearn campaign centred on seeing life from another viewpoint, to experience an average day as a 70-something person.

Simple tasks like descending stairs and navigating my local streets were hard enough, but when I took one of their cars for a test spin in the suit, things got really interesting...