Abstract
The paper discusses the social and, particularly, the health consequences resulting from the expansion of the numbers of elderly people in Brazil over a short period. The data used were from the 1998 and 2003 Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios (PNAD, the national household sampling survey), and they express an improvement in elderly people's health conditions and similar distribution of chronic diseases across all income groups. If, on the one hand, elderly people present greater disease burden and incapacities and they use healthcare services more, on the other hand, the current models for healthcare for the elderly are shown to be inefficient and high-cost. Creative and innovative structures are required, such as social centers with health assessments and treatment. Foremost on the agenda for Brazilian public policy, priority should be given to maintaining elderly people's functional capacity, with monitoring of their health conditions; preventive and differentiated actions relating to health and education; and qualified care and multidimensional comprehensive attendance.
Highlights
Prolongation of life is an aspiration of any society
Any policy aimed towards elderly people must take into account their functional capacity and their need for autonomy, participation, care and self-satisfaction
The system can gain in efficiency and elderly people can fully enjoy the years provided by advances in science.[7]
Summary
Prolongation of life is an aspiration of any society. it can only be considered to be a real achievement to the extent that quality is aggregated to the additional years of life. Any policy aimed towards elderly people must take into account their functional capacity and their need for autonomy, participation, care and self-satisfaction It must make room for the possibility of acting within a variety of social contexts and constructing new meanings for life at advanced ages. New planning and management methods become necessary, since the provision of care demands creative and innovative structures, with proposals for differentiated actions In this way, the system can gain in efficiency and elderly people can fully enjoy the years provided by advances in science.[7]. A new national healthcare policy was proclaimed,a which had the aim within the scope of the Brazilian National Health System (SUS) of ensuring comprehensive health attendance for the elderly population It emphasized healthy and active aging based on the paradigm of functional capacity, dealt with multidimensionally.b. the practical effect has still not been observed. The present paper aims to stimulate the discussion regarding the need for effective public policies to maintain elderly people’s functional capacity, for new prevention and comprehensive care strategies, and for innovative focus on care for the elderly
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