Cuidado ao idoso dependente: um desafio para a Equipe de Saúde da Família

Abstract

Statistics show that in Brazil, population is getting older due to increased life expectancy, resulting in an improved Brazilians quality of life. However, as a consequence of aging, it is observed the development of chronic diseases, which may lead the individual being bedridden and dependent on another person to perform basic activities of daily living. This other person, who is most often a family member, has the responsibility to take care for the elderly, making it often overloaded. For the families accompaniment was created the Family Health Team - ESF, which still faces great difficulties in assisting dependent older people. With this reality, the objective of this review is to search on the literature the main problems faced by the strategy of the Health System SUS, as well as possible, the proposed solutions by assessing their applicability in the population area covered by the ESF of the author of this study, in the municipality of Ouro Preto - MG. The most common problems found were the caregiver burden, lack of family knowledge about the disease and lack of human resources for program maintenance. After the study, it was found that the situation in this city is no different than other Brazilian cities in and an improvement in the dependent elderly home care will only be possible with the professionals and population commitment.