Piñeiro chorus: it is necessary to break with the stereotype and decrepit image of older persons

The meeting falls within the cross-border project Envejecimiento+Activo in which participates the Xunta de Galicia and other Galician institutions and the North of Portugal, financed with funds from the operational programme of cross-border cooperation Spain – Portugal (ENIAC) and co-financed by the European Fund for Regional Development (ERDF).

PINEIRO said that is necessary to break away from the stereotypical image of the more unfriendly and the staff ” for give justice to the role must have the person in today’s society ” is not, he said, that of integration and participation.

In his view this social change through empowerment and promotion of active ageing and the participation of the elderly in all areas of society, along with support institutional or the development of intergenerational relations, as the own Ategal Forum, helping to break the stereotypical and unfair image ”.

in that sense Piñeiro Galicia currently has about 5,000 Advanced Telecare devices and that is running Miavizor advanced Telecare project, a plan of teleprevencion which allows to serve older people without that happen in an emergency, offering its vital State information 24 hours a day and that it can be processed to see if the user is being recalled to conduct healthy lifestyle habits.

The owner of Social policy announced that from the end of this month and after the pilot of 2012, this year 500 devices of this type will be installed in different concellos in the rural of Lugo and Ourense. The plan has 800,000 euros from budget and lasting at least three years.

PINEIRO said that they are carried out also other pilot projects in telecare in Galicia as the so-called Telegerontologia, a Galician patent of the UDC pioneering and unique in the world or the platform Sam-TV of the UVIGO, attention to older persons through the TV and no Internet-basedprecisely for those elderly people who do not know or are not handled well in the network ”.

Further recalled that that same morning last Tuesday was launched from the Galician Government the strategic plan for the prevention and screening of dependence in Galicia, a set of more than 400 measures and orientations to prevent dependency and delay institutionalization allowing that those elderly people who wish to live at home may continue to do so ” and that during the next seven years will mark the roadmap of policies of prevention of personal autonomy in Galicia ”.

Finally the regional government, said Pineiro, works to promote active ageing with initiatives like Galician Plan of major 2010 to 2013 ” a project agreed with the main entities and associations of the sector, which has 12,000 users. Its objective is, the protection of the rights of the elderly, promote their participation in society and the foundations of a happy, healthy and active ageing ”.

The Maiores program students (older people) participated in the meeting gives UVIGO, ATEGAL (also elderly) students and pupils da Escola Superior de Arte Dramática de Galicia.

During the afternoon, all of them participated in a lively and colorful workshop of music therapy from 17.30 hours.

Ategal

Training Centre socio cultural, collaborator of the Xunta de Galicia, which, non profit, has spent 30 years helping to stay active, to improve the quality of life for adults and older people and to find these friendships and activities to share your free time. Pioneer in the formation of adults in Galicia, currently has 1,300 members.

Galician aging

According to the latest data of the Galician Statistics Institute (IGE) 2012, in Galicia reside 2.781.498 people, of which 635.879 have more than 65 years. That is, the 22´86 percent of society, about the quarter. Them almost 100,000 more than 80 years and some 1,200 the hundred (10 per cent of all State…) mainly in areas of population of Ourense (the more aged with 28 percent of its population over 65 years) and Lugo that taken individually, they are the first in the world in Aging, above even of similar geographical areas of Japan. The Galician community remains the most aged second in Spain after Castile and León.

In fact, the average age of life expectancy in Galicia today exceeds 82: 85.8 for women and 79 for men. The highest rate in Europe after the French, which is 83-year-old average.