Health care services aspects for seniors

Health: Health empowerment and inclusion can be achieved by promoting health literacy among seniors as well as their caregivers, strengthening geriatric healthcare within the existing healthcare system, and making special provisions for seniors. This will encompass Comprehensive Primary Healthcare Services, it is also important to strengthen mental health services, emergency response infrastructure and services, and address nutrition-related issues.

Social: For ensuring social inclusion and empowerment, specific actions such as creating awareness to sensitize the larger community on the needs and challenges experienced by the elderly, and establishing peer support groups are needed. Empowerment of the elderly will also come through awareness of existing legal safeguards, welfare schemes and ensuring legal reforms like strengthening the existing Welfare and Maintenance Act, and disposal of pending cases in maintenance tribunals in a time-bound manner.

Economic / financial: Specific actions required to ensure financial empowerment and inclusion include reskilling the elderly population, increasing coverage of public funds and infrastructure, and mandatory savings plans for the affording segment. Reverse Mortgage mechanism to increase liquidity for seniors, and tax and GST reforms on senior care products to increase the ease of adoption and safeguard the elderly population from the financial burden.

Digital: Similarly, specific interventions for ensuring digital inclusion include improving access to digital devices for seniors by making them affordable, focusing on increasing digital literacy, and harnessing the potential of modern technology.

SENIOR CARE TRANSFORMATION – SERVICE DELIVERY PRIORTIES

To ensure comprehensive senior care, there is a need to identify and ensure all aspects of care for seniors, which may include but are not limited to health, social, financial, and digital dimensions. The service delivery priorities for seniors under these dimensions we will talking about it in details in next titles:

Health: Comprehensive and Integrated Senior Care Package Integration of healthcare delivery to include nutritive, preventive, promotive, curative, rehabilitative, mental, dental, ophthalmological, and palliative services. A continuum of support should be evolved that includes all aspects of senior care, such as medical care, non-medical care, long-term support, and end-of-life care for a more holistic ageing experience. Key aspects of health inclusion are provided below:

 Increase Awareness to ensure adequate uptake of healthcare services for early identification, prevention, and management of chronic conditions.

 Emphasize early detection for better management of both acute and chronic diseases through population based screening of seniors and regular monitoring systems.

▪ Expand the network and reach of diagnostic services related to common chronic conditions like high blood pressure and cholesterol, oral cancer, cervical cancer, dementia, Parkinson’s, diabetes, dental and ophthalmologic issues, etc., among the elderly through the provision of mobile screening centres.

▪ Establish robust monitoring systems especially for neuro-degenerative dementia and other age-related disorders.

 Preventive Measures
▪ Focus on Adult Immunization especially in seniors with co-morbidities and multi-morbidities, to decrease their predisposition towards contracting various communicable diseases and NCDs.

▪ Address the hygiene-related issues among the elderly by encouraging
assistance from caregivers or family members, along with the use of adaptive equipment, such as shower chairs or grab bars, to make bathing and showering easier and safer.

 Encourage nutritional guidance services for seniors as well as their caregivers to address various issues around geriatric nutrition like obesity, nutritional deficiencies, electrolyte imbalances, lifestyle-based diseases, etc. Ensuring a balanced diet among seniors for delaying/decreasing the onset of various chronic diseases and for the maintenance of overall health.

 Enhance functional independence through rehabilitative care like physiotherapy, therapies from the Ayush system, assistive devices, etc. Restoring mobility among seniors through the provision of assistive devices to compensate for age-related functional losses among them.

  • Social Empowerment and Inclusion: Senior people require special care and attention due to their increased vulnerability to various physiological, psychological, and socio-economic problems. Recognizing the same, the government has evolved its legal and policy framework for seniors. Various enabling provisions like the ‘Integrated Action Plan for Senior Citizens’ and the ‘Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act (MWPSC), 2007’; have been laid to ensure the social and legal rights of elders. However, due to various socio-economic barriers, these remain insufficient and underutilized.
  • Some key aspects of social and legal empowerment of the elderly for their complete inclusion are given below:
  • Develop a Comprehensive and Integrated Social Security System for seniors through a multi-pronged approach, involving the government, private sector, and civil society organizations; to ensure their access to basic facilities like food, housing, sanitation facilities, etc. Expanding the scope and coverage of existing social security nets is also crucial.
  • Strengthen legal awareness to inform elderly persons of their rights. Encouraging community-led efforts and campaigns to raise awareness of various social security benefits among seniors as well as their care-givers is essential to increase their utilization of various social services available to them.
  • Build and strengthen provisions of Assisted Living Facilities (ALFs) like adult day care facilities and residential care facilities. ALFs can assist seniors with their daily living activities while their primary caregivers are at work. These facilities might also be employed to provide caregivers with a temporary break from their caregiving responsibilities. ALF may include health-related services like medication management, nursing, etc., along with social services like housekeeping, laundry, recreation, meals, and assistance with other ADL.
  • Economic Empowerment and Inclusion: The current ageing scenario is likely to increase the financial vulnerability among the senior people in India. Although the government has laid down a range of social and financial security provisions for seniors, their actual utilization remains low. Key dimensions of economic and financial inclusion are given below:
  • Expand financial literacy to promote healthy financial behaviors among seniors and to help them make informed decisions about their finances. This can be achieved through education and awareness campaigns, simplification of financial terms, utilizing digital technology, financial counseling, community partnerships, etc. Designing targeted financial literacy campaigns for seniors to increase their uptake and utilization of financial products is also essential.

Provision of a comprehensive and universal geriatric insurance which includes both medical as well as non-medical care. Expanding the scope and coverage of existing insurance products to cover provisions of home care, institutional care, assisted living, long-term care, care related to degenerative diseases like dementia and Alzheimer’s, outpatient costs, etc.

  • Digital Empowerment and Inclusion: One of the most important lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic was the need to address the digital divide among the elderly population. Digital empowerment has the potential to connect people and has gained global recognition as a driver of social and economic inclusion, especially among seniors. Ensuring the reach and coverage of digital tools and services to senior people is key towards their digital empowerment and inclusion. It is also important to understand the penetration of technology among seniors, their current use of digital tools, and barriers in accessing these digital technologies in order to develop focused strategies. Some key aspects of digital empowerment of the elderly for their complete inclusion in the digital world are given below:
  • Increasing the uptake and adoption of digital tools by making their access cheaper and easier through various measures like senior discounts
  • Ensuring a smooth digital experience for seniors through larger screens, bold letters, simpler interfaces with larger app icons, etc.
  •  Ensuring installation and maintenance support of digital devices
  • Ensuring continuous support to seniors who might require additional assistance or have questions regarding the use of digital tools.
  • Develop a digital safety mechanism to ensure the ease & safety of digital operations, especially among seniors, who may not be as familiar with technology and the potential risks associated with it. Further, it is crucial to encourage seniors to adhere to basic internet safety guidelines, such as creating strong passwords, enabling two factor authentication, installing anti-virus software on digital devices, not clicking on suspicious links, avoiding downloading unknown attachments, and not sharing personal information with strangers online; to save them from online frauds and attacks.

 

References:

  1. . NITI Aayog. (2024). Senior care reforms in India: Reimagining the senior care paradigm – A position paper. Government of India. https://www.niti.gov.in/

  2. Regional Geriatric Program of Toronto. (2017). The Senior Friendly Care (sfCare) Framework. https://www.rgptoronto.ca/resources/sfcare-framework/

  3. World Health Organization. (2017). Integrated care for older people: Guidelines on community-level interventions to manage declines in intrinsic capacity. World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789241550109

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