The quietest struggles of getting older are often the ones we misread: hearing loss that slowly pulls a person out of the conversation, and depression that hides behind aches and fatigue, are commonly mistaken for just aging when both can be found and treated

The phrase “silent struggles of aging” can tip two ways, and both of them miss. One is pity, a soft sadness about decline that treats older people as a category to feel sorry for. The other is a shrug, the sense that whatever is hard about getting older is si…