Healthy ageing: seeking a realistic objective

Despite the fact that many consider the concept of healthy ageing as recent, the truth is it was presented for the first time in 1953 by Havighurs & Albrecht. They  described successful ageing as the ideal situation in which people survive to an advanced age and still maintain their liveliness and their functional independence, while sickliness and infirmity are compressed into a relatively small time frame right before death.

The World Health Organization fixes the approach to healthy ageing as the one that takes into consideration the ability for people of all ages to live with health, safety and with a way of life that will not lead them into social exclusion. It recognizes the factors, besides health and social care, which influence the health and wellbeing, as well as the contribution of all other factors in this.

It recognizes the role that the youthful experiences of people play in the manner in which they age. It encourages a positive confrontation of life for its duration and seeks to pull down stereotypes and to change the attitudes about ageing by promoting an understanding between the generations.

The model for healthy ageing focuses on segments of the lives of the elderly and these segments constitute its main objectives which are: duration of life; physical and mental health; cognitive function; social faculties and abilities; productivity; personal control and satisfaction from life.

 
The realization of these objectives, despite their difficulty, is not impossible. It requires strategies through which individuals, with their personal strengths and abilities, as well as institutions locally and nationally, direct their efforts for an all-encompassing solution of issues concerning the elderly.

These strategies focus on the following levels which influence, prevent and often determine the course of life for the elderly:

1. Fighting social inequalities-reclusion

2. Prevention of injuries

3. Promotion of a healthy way of life

4. Confrontation of issues that concern being able to access services and goods 5. Maintenance of physical, mental and intellectual health

6. Prevention of social isolation

7. Prevention of depression and stress of the elderly

8. Creation of programs for the ageing

In the following months, we will discuss in depth each level separately, where we can either be active individually or collectively so we can achieve the goal of healthy ageing which does not utopia make but can be a realistic goal.