In this latest blog post, Swiss partner, Akademie Berlingen, a non-profit organisation discusses the need for new approaches to elder care.
In Switzerland, as in other industrialized countries, the share of people in need of care in the resident population is increasing dramatically. As the proportion of younger volunteers doing voluntary work falls and older people get older, the need for care will increase dramatically until 2030. In Switzerland, the proportion of informal volunteer work should be increased by 60% by 2030 if one wishes to use the same amount of resources as before for very old-age seniors.
Therefore it will be necessary to find other forms of support so that the growing number of people in need of care will continue to be well supported and that older people can live self-determined in their private environment for as long as possible. Based on these considerations it is obvious to explore new approaches with new technologies and to introduce them in everyday life, so that the available time of voluntary work can be used as much as possible for interpersonal activities.
The challenge of course is that people in voluntary work also understand and master these new technical support tools, so that there is a harmonious coexistence and not against each other. These challenges must be taken into account in all technical innovations and in this sense the volunteer organizations have to handle additional tasks, perhaps it may not be enough to provide previously learned everyday activities to somebody in the context of volunteering, rather it must be offered training on technical aids upfront to the volunteers.
