The toothless and infirm get shipped off to a horse sanctuary in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.

ECONOMIST: The West��s wild horses

It is the story of a man born into a wizened and infirm body who gets younger as he ages.

CNN: Review: 'Benjamin Button' amazes, moves

When granny has become so infirm that she can no longer make a cup of tea, she may be nudged into a care home.

ECONOMIST: The answer is postponed once again

The worry now is that a bonanza of oil will weaken an already infirm resolve to drill deeper into the economy's structural problems.

ECONOMIST: Brazil

The sullen French actor and longtime Carax collaborator Denis Lavant, trained as an acrobat, enters a stretch limo, only to emerge as an elderly and infirm woman begging along the Seine.

NEWYORKER: Holy Motors

The 85-year-old pope announced the bombshell in Latin during a meeting of Vatican cardinals, surprising even his closest collaborators, even though he had said in the past a pope could step down if he became too old or infirm to do the job.

WSJ: Pope Moved to Build Church's Spiritual Life

The same goes for robotic spoons that make it easier for the infirm to feed themselves, power suits that help lift heavy grocery bags, and a variety of machines that watch the house, vacuum the carpet and so on.

ECONOMIST: Why the Japanese want their robots to act more like humans

Of course it may well be the case that there is no alternative to the old and infirm running nations in which the average age keeps falling to the 20s and lower, but it is a debate that will not go away.

BBC: African viewpoint: Death on the continent