Aged care means holistic care of elderly people while focusing on just not a single aspect but actually taking care of our guiding angles as per their needs.
India is aging at a speed much faster than one can imagine. According to reports of “The economic times”, it is estimated that nearly 20% of the population of India will be above 60 by 2050. We know that most of the elderly population of India is living in rural areas, are illiterate, and are economically dependent. We also are well aware of this fact that in older times, women were supposed to take care of elderly people and elderly people were seen most delighted while enjoying with their grandchildren in a joint family. But now the whole scenario has changed.
Now woman is becoming more and more economically independent and they are also shifting from rural to urban areas along with their husbands in search of work. It is obvious that they are taking their children with them. Thus, now the only age group left is elderly people, along with diseases and vision or hearing impairments.
So, the newest urgency for India is to provide health care services for its silver-hair citizens and the best solution of such problems is providing effective and proper aged care. There are many organizations working day and night to make the life of elderly people better and more comfortable. This can be done by providing “nurse home service” and “health care services at home“, especially for less mobile patients and the one who don’t want to leave their home and live somewhere else.
Taking care of the elderly means enhancing their happiness by simplifying, energizing, and most importantly securing their life.
Table of Contents
To generalize things, we can simply divide all the services required to aged care into four categories –
1. Emergency services-
The elders, who don’t live with their children either because their children went to some our city or any other such reasons, always live in this insecurity of emergencies. As they don’t have anybody to take them to hospitals on time. Not only this but also, first aids box should be in the house and placed in an easily accessible site.
2. Health care –
As old age comes with many health problems like high blood pressure, dementia, Alzheimer’s, osteoporosis, diabetes, etc. So, health services are also one of the major parts of aged care. It includes the availability of verified and certified nurses, doctors, physiotherapists, dietitians, etc. Maintaining health records is also very crucial like record of previous injuries, accidents, allergies, and chorionic and genetic family diseases.
3. Engagement and interaction:
We can’t ignore the importance of interactions. Elderly care means providing opportunities for elders to make them feel worthy. Loneliness and stress are most common feelings faced by elderly people. So they should be engaged into some work where they can earn and volunteer and interact with like minded people. Elders should be taken into events suitable for their age group surrounded by people of similar interests.
4. Support Aged Care:
Elders should be given proper emotional, physical, mental and social support and help. The needs like travel bookings, gas fillings, pest control, etc should be taken care of.
It is observed that in Indian medical science not much focus is given to elderly health issues. Few years back there were no such awareness about trained nurses or caregiver for senior citizens of India. Recently Indian government is taking few steps regarding elder care like –
* In 2007, the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act was passed. According to this law, the care of elders was made obligatory by children and relatives and on their abandonment legal actions are supposed to be taken.
* In 2011, National Program for the Health Care of Elderly was formulated focusing on the growing health concerns of the elders.
* In 2011, The National Policy on Senior Citizens recognized senior citizens as important part of the society and worked in their upliftment to support in income-generating activities.
Wrapping up
Government can only increase the number of health professionals to treat elderly people but it should be the family who must be teaching their children the moral values of respecting elders and how to give all care and love they actually deserve. We believe that, even in school curricular, the basic knowledge of elderly care should be given.
If you are also looking for a caregiver or any other heath care services for your dear ageing parents! Or still having some confusion!
Our team would be more than happy to help you out!
Feel free to contact us at digitalstrivers@gmail.com
We will do our best to satisfy you with our services.
