Insidious boundaries

“What’s the use of having freedom if one cannot go out. Free, I am not”. Lack of accessibility to outside surroundings is one of the greatest challenges some people of the world face today. Limited accessibility leads to isolation and restricted inclusion in society most often for those living with physical mobility challenges and older persons living in less affluent regions of the world. This image illustrates the daily hurdles encountered by mobility challenged older persons in Brazil. Representations of disability, isolation and limited inclusion in society as a typical trajectory in the aging process are still dominant, while there is little awareness and concern of the environmental barriers that shape and perpetuate these societal views. Environmental barriers encountered by mobility challenged older persons serve as concrete images of the ways many are excluded, made invisible and allowed to become legitimized as society’s “outliers”. This research shed light on the situation of older persons living with mobility challenges in a part of Brazil. Much could be done at a limited cost to promote greater inclusion and less isolation of these valuable members of society.