Rapporti ISTISAN 09/49 ISTITUTO SUPERIORE DI SANITÀ Ageing ...

Rapporti ISTISAN 09/49
Such principles are based on the ideas of:
- Independence
The elderly should:
- have access to food, water, a house and clothes and a suitable health care, regardless of
their economic, family and community conditions and their degree of self-sufficiency.
- have the opportunity of working or have access to other earning opportunities.
- be enabled to participate into decision-making and into carrying out procedures of
retirement from work.
- have access to adequate educational and training programmes
- be enabled to live in safe places, which can be furnished according to their tastes and
their personality and adapted to their necessities.
- be allowed to live in their house as long as possible
- Participation
The elderly should:
- be integrated within society, by actively participating into the planning and carrying
out of policies regarding their wellbeing and sharing their knowledge and their
abilities with younger generations
- be enabled to look for and develop opportunities for serving their communities and for
serving as volunteers with functions conforming with their interests and their abilities
- be enabled to set up movements or associations of the elderly
- Care
The elderly should:
- be supported by their families and communities, according to the system of cultural
values of each society.
- have access to treatments which help them to keep or recover the optimum level of
physical, mental and emotional wellbeing and to prevent or delay the onset of diseases.
- have access to social and legal services for increasing their autonomy, their protection
and care.
- be enabled to use adequate levels of institutional care which can provide them with
protection, rehabilitation and social and mental stimuli in a human and safe environment.
- be enabled to enjoy human rights and the fundamental rights of freedom, regardless of
their residence place, being their house or a health care or rehabilitation institution, the
full respect of their dignity, their thought, their needs and their privacy and the right of
taking decisions about their medical treatments and the quality of their life included.
- Self-realization
The elderly should:
- be enabled to take advantage of all opportunities for the full development of their
potentials.
- have access to the educational, cultural, spiritual and recreational resources of society.
- Dignity
The elderly should:
- be enabled to live in conditions of dignity and safety, far from any exploitation
situations and situations of physical and mental abuse.
- be treated without discriminations, regardless of their age, their sex, their race or
ethnic origin, their disability or other conditions, and be estimated regardless of their
economic conditions.
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