We all know someone with a frail condition such as Parkinson’s, arthritis, cataracts or a heart condition – among others – but unless we have been in their shoes, like Bucks Free Press reporter Shruti Sheth Trivedi had the opportunity to do this week, we can never truly know how they feel.

According to health bosses, there are currently three million people in the UK aged over 80, and they say this number is expected to almost double by 2023.

The number of centenarians has also risen by 50 per cent since 2002, according to the figures from Buckinghamshire NHS Trust.

I was very kindly invited by the trust to try out their ‘frailty equipment’ – equipment which allows you to get an idea of how someone with a certain condition could feel physically – at Stoke Mandeville Hospital this week.

Jo Birrell, the hospital's matron for older people, told me as we get older, one in three of us stand a chance of becoming carers, and often that will be on top of our full-time jobs.

She said: “If you don’t have what’s called end of life planning, you keep getting bounced into hospital.

“You have negative experiences like we’ve seen across the country this winter – people waiting in corridors, etc. and it’s not often what a lot of our patients want.

“So one of the questions we ask people is what matters most to [them] and people often say they just want to be at home – they are worried about what’s going to happen to their life. They don’t want to be over treated [in hospital].

“These are questions that society now needs to start to discuss – about what’s the best thing to do for our older population, and our own responsibilities for looking after people.

“[Being a carer] will be about having to provide care, but it is also about having those brave discussions with our older relatives.”

The frailty kit included a very heavy vest, intended to simulate a heart condition, gloves to show what Parkinson’s can feel like, noise cancelling headphones with tinnitus sounds, different glasses to simulate different types of sight loss, including cataracts, and equipment to show what arthritis might feel like.

Jo and another nurse, Katriona Kennedy, started off by putting me in the vest, cataract glasses and tinnitus headphones, and asked me to walk towards the stairs.

That was scary enough as I could hardly see anything – everything was hazy with a yellow-grey tint – and the heavy vest felt like it was getting tighter around my chest.

That coupled with the headphone emitting a constant shrill ringing noise, I was sure I was going to fall before I even got to the steps.

Once I got there, Jo helped me down the stairs and took me outside, where she asked me to cross over to the other side, where the main building was. I could barely see the footpath and almost tripped after missing a step.

We went into the main building, where Jo asked me to buy a copy of the Daily Mail from a shop. When I got inside, I could barely read the titles of the papers and had to hold them right up to my eyes before I could see the name.

The worst were the Parkinson’s gloves. Jo turned the impulse up fairly high and I could feel my fingers contorting painfully without having any control over them. At one point my wrists felt like they were going to break.

The experience really put into perspective what older people must go through, especially with frail conditions. Not being able to see or hear properly, and feeling a massive weight on my chest showed me what it must be like for those with chronic conditions – it was a real eye-opener.

Jo said: “About 80 per cent of our older people are living really well without using health and social care.

“So it’s a real myth that all older people are a drain on the health service or older people are the problem. It’s only about 20 per cent who are using it but they are high users – they use about 80 per cent of resources.

“Those discussions [about end of life care] should really be owned by society not the NHS.”

If you need any extra support, or know anyone who does, please contact your GP in the first instance.