Senior adults: dependence and autonomy

The pandemic revealed the dependence of senior adults in areas such as care and the need of support, but it also showed that this group is capable of making their own decisions and occupy a prominent place in the family and affective networks.

 

Many senior adults have seen their digital dependence overcome and now are part of the social networks, e-commerce, online games and online procedures. In this sense, it is fundamental to improve the user experience for this particular sector, offering them alternatives focused on improving their quality of life, as well as the simplification and adaptation of the written and graphic language. 

 

There is this recurrent image of the “older citizen” that wipes away the different types of identity. There is not one single type of old age, but many that concur and coexist, forming a very diverse segment.

 

Vulnerability was evident during the pandemic but the adaptation to change and resilience were also visible. We should move towards a model of senior adults that are not infantilized either in the family or the institutional environment, where rights are not violated in exchange for care, food of housing.