An Overview of Elderly Care Technicians in Elderly Care Services as a Social Policy Field

Abstract

As in the rest of the world, in Turkey, the ageing population has become an issue that needs to be focused on. Elderly care service includes a social, economic and psychological process. Social policy, elderly care services are carried out by nursing and daycare homes. However, since placing elderly individuals in nursing homes is not a widely accepted approach under the traditional family structure in Turkey, care services are primarily provided in the elderly person's own home or their children's. In addition, the participation of women in working life mainly results in the elderly individuals at home being cared for by a newcomer woman, and this care service is often carried out by people who have not received the necessary training in elderly care and often by foreign national employees; accordingly, the care that should be supplied to the elderly is not provided proficiently. Particularly in the present, the lack of sufficient quantitative health professionals to meet the increasing elderly population causes deficiencies in providing the necessary care. Considering that this deficiency can be met at the technician level, geriatric care technician training programmes are being initiated, and the gap in this field is being filled with trained personnel shortly.