INSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE ANSWERS TO THE PHENOMENON OF DEMOGRAPHIC AGING: (RE)CONFIGURATION OF THE SOCIAL SERVICES INFRASTRUCTURE
INSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE ANSWERS TO THE PHENOMENON OF DEMOGRAPHIC AGING: (RE)CONFIGURATION OF THE SOCIAL SERVICES INFRASTRUCTURE

Summary/Abstract: The study analyses the types of services for elderly people. The analysis made on this subject aims at pointing out the features of the current pattern of services, the responsibilities of the public authorities and the predictions on keeping, improving or even assuming another pattern. The types of social services dedicated to elderly people belong to a medical paradigm. A new paradigm referring to the infrastructure of services for elderly people does not intend to revolutionize the system. It is not necessary to invent activities to fill in the elderly people’s time but, on the contrary, to create conditions for the manifestation of the real needs which are not only the medical ones. For the creation of a new paradigm it is necessary to take into account indicators about the vital minimum and the symbolic meaning of consumption. In this way, there must be a stressed receptivity at the level of institutions that deliver the tasks, and the existing resources should be redistributed for actions and services based not only upon the matter of the demand but on the type of problems that engender the demands.

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