Strategy and Direction for elderly care in Bangkok

Abstract

        Due to the fertility of Thai people is decreasing respectively, Thailand especially Bangkok is stepped into an aging society. Therefore, it is necessary to study the strategies and appropriate methods to solve the problems of the elderly in Bangkok. The study is by seminar to search for strategies, in-depth interviews with executives and experts from related departments is applied. The study found that among 5,666,264 people in Bangkok in 2020, there are 1,121,698 elderly (19.80%). By 2025, the proportion of elderly will be increased to 20% of the population, which is a complete aging society. It was found that 95.06% of the population can take care themselves (social group), 2.66% can sometimes take care themselves (home group), 2.28% can’t take care themselves (bedside group). This study has proposed 5 strategies: 1 Prepare all age groups for quality of life of elderly, 2 Promotion and development of the elderly, 3 Protection system for the elderly, 4 Integrated management for elderly development project, 5 Research promotion and development of information technology systems, innovations, evaluation and monitoring system. The study has proposed the model of care for the elderly in 3 aspects. Firstly, care for social group which includes elderly club in the community and setting up the Bangkok Elderly Happiness Center. Activities in the center include: 1 Physical health (body movement) in order to promote health to be physically strong, active, agile, and strength, 2 Bliss / Emotional (psychological) to encourage understanding of life, feelings of one's own heart, accept things as they happen, do not hold on to too much, 3 Social happiness to promote pride for oneself, to see self-worth, self-esteem, sympathize with others, 4 Intellectual happiness to promote memory, intelligence, reasoning. Secondly is care for the elderly of home group, which can be classified into 2 groups. They are 1 Can move and may have problems of eating or excretion, but without confusing of brain, 2 with brain confusing conditions. This group requires a home care service agency. Thirdly is care for the bedside group. This group need register and organize a system for Home Ward. The caring should be carry out by care giver who has been trained 70 hours. To solve the increasing elderly problems.