Health and Well-Being of Elderly: Need of Social Work Intervention

Examining the Impact of Social Work Intervention on the Health and Well-Being of the Elderly

Abstract

Health is a very important factor in the well-being of the elderly since they are prone to diseases due to degenerative changes. The life style diseases like diabetes, hyper-tension, cardio vascular problems, digestive disturbances, cancers etc., accelerates among the elderly. The complications of degenerative changes among elderly are more and it has impact on physical status directly or indirectly. The present study aims at studying the socio-economic profiles and elderly health status to identify scope for social work intervention. 400 elderly were selected with the help of simple random sample with proportionate allocation from an universe of 1200 elderly from Vidavaluru, Venkatachalam and Manubolu mandals. The study reveals that less than one third of the elderly i.e. 32.25 percent have health problems like eye sight and hearing problems followed by 32.0 percent with body aches, cold and cough, 18.75 percent have diabetes, B.P., menopausal problems, 12.50 percent have diabetes, B.P., skin, heart, respiratory, etc. The intervention provided to the elderly has a positive and visible impact in the areas such as health behaviors (preventive care).