title: Creating opportunities for health professionals to combat ageism.
abstract: Ageism has been described as the third great 'ism' following racism and sexism. But unlike racism and sexism, ageism has the potential to target everyone if they live long enough. Older adults are frequently labelled in negative ways, such as senile, sad, lonely, poor, sexless, dependent and disabled, and people are socialised into believing these labels are true.