Inclusión de la Educación Social en la Intervención Gerontológica de las residencias. Necesidades, Desafíos y Propuestas Innovadoras

Resumen

After the great increase in life expectancy of populations, improvement in quality of life and well-being of the aging population has become an important goal for modern societies. With this in mind, the World Health Organization (WHO, 2002) proposed that active aging should be defined as “the process of optimizing opportunities for health, participation and security in order to enhance quality of life as people age” (p. 12). According to the WHO (2002), active aging implies maintaining autonomy, independence and quality of life, and participating in all spheres of life, that is, participating in the social, civic, economic and spiritual spheres of life (Caprara, 2008). Recently, lifelong learning has been conceptualized as a component of active aging itself and not just an element of the participation pillar (WHO, 2015), given its positive implications during the entire life cycle and also at older ages (Fernández-Ballesteros, Molina, Schettini, & Del Rey, 2012). The aging process can sometimes derive in situations of vulnerability, disability or dependence that have a detrimental effect on older peoples’ autonomy and decision-making capacity (Cerri, 2015), which can lead to emotional distress (Bierman & Statland, 2010; Korda, Paige, Yiengprugsawan, Latz & Friel, 2014; Sampasa-Kanyinga, Zamorski & Colman, 2018). Likewise, disability and health problems could cause feelings of inefficiency and uselessness in older people, which directly affects their perception of autonomy and environmental mastery (Bozo, Toksabay & Kürüm, 2009). In addition, for institutionalized older people the autonomy and social participation levels are lower when compared to community-dwelling older people (Killaspy et al., 2016). Swiftness and a lack of external consideration with regards to the desires of those who receive such care are common at care facilities (Ors & Maciá, 2013). This circumstance has a major impact on older adults’ emotional status, because it diminishes their ability to carry out valued activities for their daily life or leisure activities (Ors & Maciá, 2013), thus it constitutes a great limitation of nursing homes. The inclusion of innovative activities based on the pillars of active aging in nursing homes for older adults, that facilitate participation in significant activities for older people and that empower them, could be an important benefit for the residents of these centers. In this work, the inclusion of a three-month program with activities of this type meant an increase in psychological well-being and life satisfaction of older people who live in a specialized nursing home, benefits that remained after one year of the application of program.