an article of Javier Aguado Rodriguez,
geriatric nurse specialist
Nursing supervisor of the area for the elderly,
Social Health Center
According to the WHO (2002) the active aging It is the process of optimizing opportunities for health, participation and security, whose purpose is to improve the quality of life of older people as they age. Your goal is promote physical, social and mental well-being favoring their participation in the community according to their personal needs, desires and abilities.
Starting from this definition, it seems obvious to think that the achievement of these objectives can only be achieved by detecting the motivations and needs of the elderly themselves, and given that each human being is unique, different and with different interests and preferences, it seems necessary a change of care model that prioritizes the quality of life and the guarantee of respect for people’s preferences.
The professionals who work with the elderly must Design activities that take personal experiences into account, life story and biography of each one. When we invest part of our time in gathering information about the lives of our elders, their tastes, hobbies and interests, we can offer them meaningful activities that give meaning to their daily lives. In the end it is about themselves Choose in which activities you want to invest your time.
When an activity makes sense to us, we incorporate it into our routine as part of the day to day, becoming one of the daily objectives, something for which we get up every morning and that provides us with satisfaction and well-being and that is what we all need to do. meaningful activities to feel alive.
It is true that at this stage of life, older people can be more fragile and have to face changes and adapt to new situations, but it can also be a stage of development and personal growthwhere education and learning play an important role in promoting motivation and in improving well-being, personal skills and self-esteem.
Learning is a fundamental need that people maintain throughout our lives, therefore actively aging would mean learning to:
- Improve our emotional well-being:
It implies accepting the changes of this stage, adapting and accepting the losses that occur and not only physically but also significant people. - Learn to take care of ourselves:
Self-care is learned throughout life. Acquiring and practicing healthy habits (food, exercise, leisure) will help prevent diseases and can be a great lesson if we need to take care of other people, something that can also happen at this stage. - Learn to maintain positive and satisfying social relationships:
Loneliness and isolation can be a common evil of old age. Fostering contact with other people and facilitating the creation of social and affective ties will help increase satisfaction and personal enrichment. Social relationships have a very positive influence on self-esteem and can be a great support in situations of loss of loved ones or situations of loneliness. - Learn to stay fit and not only on a physical level but also on a mental level:
Physical exercise provides us with health and brings multiple benefits to our body, it helps us feel better and also provides us with a formidable excuse to leave the house and interact with other people with similar tastes and hobbies to ours. Physical exercise adapted to our abilities will also improve our autonomy and delay dependency. Mental exercise by carrying out activities such as reading, artistic activities or recovering old forgotten hobbies will also provide great benefits in addition to playing a preventive role against cognitive deterioration.
Actively aging by learning to live each stage of life to the fullest, by carrying out meaningful and pleasant activities, finding incentives and sources of motivation that make us feel useful and necessaryit must be our life project and who knows if, in the end, it turns out to be one of the happiest stages of our lives.