gerontophobia

If I step outside my role as a gerontologist and put on my psychologist's hat, it's pretty obvious to me that gerontophobia (the fear of aging and discomfort with the elderly) -- and ageism (a set of beliefs used to justify age-based prejudice) still permeate every facet of our culture.

Ken Dychtwald Ph.D.: S&P Decided Your Aging Parents Are Destroying America: Is That OK With You?

One reason families are ill-prepared when crises overtake an old loved one, Feinstein says, is that “our society has an embedded ‘gerontophobia,’ in which people think they are younger than they are.”

Shock of Gray

They argue that attitudes were highly favorable to the aged in "preindustrial" society, before a spirit of "gerontophobia" appeared in the modern world.

Growing Old: An Exchange

As for primogeniture, the leading modern authority on the subject, Professor Stanley Katz of the Chicago Law School, has given no weight at all to gerontophobia in causing its abolition.

Growing Old: An Exchange

While previous symptoms -- aphasia, auditory and visual hallucinations -- remained present, Romney displayed several new symptoms at Thursday night's debate in Jacksonville, including severe mood swings, megalomania, and gerontophobia, fear of the elderly.

The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com

I have coined new terms for it viz. gerontophobia, and genrontoneurosis.

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