SIG Ageing Well - Background and Objectives
Fig.: Constituents of Indipendent Living
(click to enlarge)
“Ageing well” / “Independent Living” is described as a situation/scenario where a spectrum of services and products is provided that will allow citizens – regardless of their age – to lead an independent and healthy life ideally from their homes and not to be brought to residential care – and if so, be provided with the best possible spectrum of services - but also enhancing their quality of life by enabling them to take part in a full range of social, economic and cultural activities.
“Independent living” is seen as a crucial prerequisite to allow for “active ageing” and an “ageing well”.
Independent living is an elementary need of people. The idea of “independent living” can conceptually vary from “fully autonomous living” to specific forms of “assisted living” that enable older people to lead a self-determined life in their home environment for as long as possible.
Assisted living is a particular approach, providing services that focus on maximising older or functionally disabled people’s independence and dignity. The underlying idea is to provide flexible, individualised supportive services and health care. Involvement of the community, as well as the clients family, neighbours and friends is encouraged. Assisted living already serves a broad range of elderly and seems to develop as a bridge between active retirement, living and, for some, care in a nursing facility.
In Europe, the notion of independent living is congruent with the idea of “integration” of all citizens. Integration rather than accommodation, became recognised as the key to the inclusion of people with disabilities. Member States are seeking to identify and remove barriers to equal opportunities and to promote full participation of disabled people in all aspects of life. For older people this means enabling them - fit or frail – to be as independent, self reliant and socially-integrated as possible.
A specific policy concept in this field is “Ageing in place”. These policies or practices are dedicated to maintaining and supporting independent living as long as possible. The model encourages a host of community services and resources to support seniors living in their own homes (including "traditional" services such as Meals on Wheels and home health services but can also include alarming services, telemonitoring, telemedicine and other technology based services) and to support seniors in independent living. The “ageing in place” model has led to new ways of conceptualising long-term care, respecting and taking full account of the needs of the residents. Ageing people are provided care when the need arises, thereby avoiding painful separations from familiar environments. In some countries traditional nursing homes have embraced the ageing in place idea and are striving to create personal and homelike environments for residents. But it is clear that this is a different approach than community living.
Many older people are confronted with physical constraints and go through typical life-cycle trajectories that increase the likelihood that social contacts get lost or are reduced in quantity and quality. In this (and other) context, information and communication technologies (ICT) can play an important role and help to at least reduce and in some cases even compensate for such losses by way of providing appropriate ICT-based services. It is against this background that home-based ICT services have gained in importance and will continue to do so in the future even more prominently. Therefore especially the ICT-based services should be specifically addressed as part of the work in the SIG “Ageing Well”.
The concept of independent living has changed over time. It is no longer a question of helping the old and frail to cope with daily life. It is increasingly about enhancing their quality of life by enabling them to take part in a full range of social, economic and cultural activities in different spheres as depicted in the following figure thereby addressing challenges to independent living that come with the ageing process.
The constituents and shaping factors of independent living are depicted in the following figure in which a differentiation according to the different types of needs of an individual takes place. The different levels of needs are described as
- Basic and physical needs
- Psycho-social needs and
- Participatory and self-fulfilment needs
While the first group of needs focuses on the very basic and physical needs of an individual such as medical treatment, health care, personal hygiene, mobility at home etc., the second one addresses those closely related to social contacts and support (e.g. partnership, familial support). Finally, we have clustered those needs which allow for participation in an individual’s different spheres (private, public, working sphere) in society and which lead to self-fulfilment.
All these needs vary from individual to individual and are very much determined by factors like for instance an individual’s health status, socio-economic background and life-cycle experiences, self perception and aspirations. Also role expectations – which differ according to age, gender, health etc. play an important role in relation to the needs of individuals.
While care paradigms have traditionally been focussed more on the left side of the needs typology, we want to stress that Independent Living or Ageing Well as concepts of quality of life in older age should try to take an holistic approach of these needs briefly sketched here.
It is against this background that project activities of the SEN@ER partner regions could or should be developed to address and cover either a specific aspect of this model or several aspects.
