Peter Lichtenberg, director of the Institute of Gerontology , is quoted in an article about how to persuade elderly persons to see a doctor if they have an aversion to doing so. "I hear people say, 'I don't want to go because I don't want to know,'" Lichtenberg observes. "The assumption is that if they have a disease it's untreatable or terminal, and that's wrong." He points out that seniors, more than any other group, worry that they will become a burden to others, mainly their kids.