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Let's start removing "old" from the list of things we want to filter out of our workforce. Age discrimination is real and it surfaces in the most insidious ways such that adding it to a list of negative traits just seems natural.

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we don't want to filter out, but manage.

Old age is not something to be managed. People are old, not by choice, but by natural processes that no one can control. You will be old one day and hopefully no one will see that as something that has to be managed, but if we feed into this negative trend then it is likely you will be seen in that same light. In the meantime, make a positive move away from ageism and remove that attribute from your mental profile of employees who requirement more management than others.

Your question implicitly suggests that you wouldn’t have problems managing young, unmotivated, change resisting programmers.

If so, do you think there is an innate difference between old unmotivated, change resisting programmers and young unmotivated, change resisting ones, or could your attitude towards the two groups be different?

Young people generally don't resist change because change benefits them. People who have invested 5 years into an obsolete skillset are most resistant to change.

Could you define “manage” in more detail and possibly provide an example?

Right now this is very vague and it sounds like you’re facing an immovable obstacle.

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