Trends and Developments in Health-Care and Social Services

Abstract

Health and well-being promotion as well as disease prevention are an important part of health-care and social services also in older people's lives in all settings. As was mentioned in the introduction of this chapter, focusing on health and well-being promotion and disease prevention for older people supports enhancing health and well-being of older people as well as enabling efficient use of resources in healthcare and social services. Different kinds of approaches and interventions are used to increase people's well-being and prevent diseases as well as reduce health costs. These interventions are traditionally targeted towards younger people as those who have more years of life ahead and can benefit from prevention activities for longer period of time. However, while the population is ageing in Europe, health and wellbeing promotion and disease prevention for older people is more and more important as it may bring variety of social benefits. Several kinds of methods are used in health promotion and disease prevention [1-3].

Developing a competence framework for gerontological nursing in China: a two-phase research design including a needs analysis and verification study

“…The third trend in gerontological nursing is a focus on health promotion and healthy ageing via disease prevention and a healthy lifestyle [28,33]. The fourth trend is support for independent living at home; many older people remain at home and use technological solutions in gerontology [34][35][36]. The fifth trend is multidisciplinary collaboration, which is important when a patient has multiple health or social issues.…”

“…Endof-life care provision must be possible in settings such as hospitals, homes or community and rehabilitation placements [44]. Nurses and health team members provide the medical, emotional and spiritual support needed in end-of-life care [34,44]. Because HEIs educate the future workforce, it is important to incorporate these trends into nursing curricula.…”