Caring for quality ageing

Educating for healthy ageing should then be the task of all education, continuing education programs, third-age universities and also of leisure-time occupation programs. It is about giving individuals the responsibility to build their healthy ageing, leading them to consider that they want and can live a long life, with more active and quality years, relegating disability and disease to ever increasing ages. This talk focus on the determinants of quality of life and health: - firstly, the affections and social relations, then the proper feeding, regular physical exercise, adapted to each one’s capacities and finally, financial security. Our proposal is that one may reconcile each moment with their real capacities and competences, so that one can live each age at its best, building health and quality of life, everyday! Universities begin to include in their formative offer courses of gerontology, physicians and nurses can already devote themselves to the specialty of geriatrics, but still very much needs to be done: it will be necessary for architects to know how to draw elderly-friendly buildings, that the food industry understands the needs of those who live alone and produce suitable foods, packaged in small quantities, that the caterers prepare ready-to-eat meals designed to meet the expectations of the elders, which are quite distinct from those of the teenagers and young adults, that sports equipment offer adapted sport solutions, that the communication technology industry includes the older in its target audience, that training centres provide learning packages designed for the elderly, because yes, we can always learn, and new technologies cannot exclude the older ones.