OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY IN ELDERLY WITH A GROUP SOCIAL ACTIVITIY

1. OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY IN ELDERLY WITH A GROUP SOCIAL ACTIVITIY Öksüz Ç*., Akel S*., Yücel H*., Atasavun S. * *Hacettepe University School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Department of Occupational Therapy

2. Turkey is a society who looks after their elderly with their traditions and customs • The big majority of the elderly live with their children, the ones who live apart are in close contact

3. Although the old are traditionally inclined to live with their family and children, a change towards the nuclear family has caused the number of those living at a retirement home to increase • The ratio of old people who live at a retirement home in Turkey is said to be 3.6%.

4. Elderly centres provide their services to those older people feeling lonely and desiring to make their diminishing relations strong • The beneficiaries of these centres are those who are living in their own houses or are living with their families or are not desired to be left alone at home • These centres give an opportunity to the older people to be together with other older people and to participate some social and daily activities

5. Irrelevant and inadequate physical conditions of establishments that take care of the old and the insufficient quality and quantity of staff that work in such establishments are two foremost sources of problems encountered in services provided for the old in Turkey

6. The proportion of the elderly population in our general population will increase two or three times more in thirty years • The lack of social and cultural programs that may socialize those who live in these establishments and help them to join the social life in a productive manner

7. We planned to make the Project according to this topic. Occupational therapy is a new develoing profession in Turkey and it would be useful to show the effects of therapy in a most needed area.

8. PURPOSE • To have the elderly benefit from the areas that they are interested in • To have the elderly participate to manpower • To have the older take some responsibilities on themselves • To give opportunity to the elderly to benefit from social occupations

9. MATERIAL AND METHOD • Our research was included volunteer 15 elderly people who lived in The Akyurt Rest House. • We have used semi-open interview and talked to 15 elderly • We had formed 5 main questions to learn their interests. After interviews we wanted to organize “elderly chorous” as their most favourite activity was singing.

10. We thought a group activity would be more useful so that they can all share their feelings and enjoy being together • The Akyurt Rest House is our ongoing partnership. Interviews were done with the registered elderly there. Also permission is taken for the organization of the chorous.

11. We had also a pilot study there and our traditional music chorous formed form the students went to Akyurt Rest house and sang together with the elderly • After the activity we learnt about their reflections

12. We are at the stage of forming the chorous form volunteers and stating the date for the activity

13. Main Findings, Outcomes of Research or Action: That they feel: • It is nice to do something else than watching TV • Confident • Good for sharing something with people • Also they did not feel themselves alone and useless

14. Turkısh elderly have an inactive life as they believe in faith. Also they think being old means sitting at home • This project will encourage and support the projects of caring for the elderly , increase the efficiency and improve the quality of facilities providing elderly, make aware the people around elderly that they can still participate in activities and mainly make elderly believe in they can still do new things while living

15. Future Recommendations • First of all actually Turkey has a big problem to improve the quality live of the elderly. It is shown that the majority of the elderly were living at undesirable conditions and the government or related institutions have to make better these conditions. The situation comes more serious when the Turkish culture is considered. Because the elderly may not say their real needs easily to somebody else • More projects should be done considering elderly and more support should be given to them

16. Short personal reflection of the action and the value for your future occupational therapy practice • We will still be in relation with Akyurt rest house and we are planning activity days for the habitants of Akyurt • Every populatin have different needs and it is nice to discover them while working with them • We would understand the needs of elderly much better when dealing with problems of them in occupational therapy services.

17. References • Hviding, K., Merette, M. (1998). Macroeconomics Effects of Pension Reforms in the Context of Ageing Populations: Overlapping Generations Model Simulations for Seven OECD Countries. Economics Department Working Papers, No. 201, OECD, 4.

18. SHCEK. (1999). Ülkemizde Yaşlılara Götürülen Hizmetler. Başbakanlık Sosyal Hizmetler Genel Müdürlüğü, Ankara. • www.yaslilikrehberi.gov.tr • Hacettepe University Institute of Demography and Macro International Inc. 1999. 1998 Turkey Demography and Health Survey, Ankara.

19. THANKS FOR ATTENTION