Atenção á saúde do idoso: um programa necessário

Abstract

The increasing elderly population is a worldwide phenomenon and, with few exceptions, everyone is at some stage of this process. A big challenge in the 21st century will be to provide care to a population over thirty-two million elderly with their vast majority with low socioeconomic and educational levels and with high prevalence of chronic diseases and disabling. Considering the constitutional principle that the State should assure to the citizen his (her) right to comprehensive care, this age group deserves a special attention from health professionals. However, it is still incipient the systematic monitoring of such system user in order to prevent that events, characteristic of the aging process, become diseases. The goal of this work was to elaborate a proposal of an Elderly Health Care Program aiming at the implementation, by the team, of a Program of Community Health Agents. We analyzed the elderly statute, the National Policy for the elderly and the National Policy of Health of the Elderly. A literature review has also been conducted in order to identify the main issues to be addressed in the basic care of the elderly. After, based on the review, we elaborated a proposal of an Elderly Health Care Program, addressing, among other aspects: training of technical nursing staff, administrative staff, cleaning agents and community health agents; implementation of a nursing consultation; realization of the remove-carpets operation together with all professionals that perform home visits, especially the community health agents; establishment of groups such as the HiperDia, so that the knowledge may be shared among health professionals and elderly patients.The objective was fully achieved and it is expected that the proposal will be implemented in the first half of 2014.