Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic, apart from health threats, has shown the problem of older adults’ social isolation and loneliness in aging societies that has been progressing for several decades. Older adults’ singularisation, loosening family relations, diminishing families’ caring potential, caused that during the lockdown, many older adults – without the neighbours’ or NGOs’ support or the activities undertaken by local authorities – would be left without meeting their basic life and social needs. Authors draw their attention to the different aspects of population aging process and its socio-economic consequences. Nevertheless, the subject of older adults’ loneliness and the growing role of institutions (coordinated by local government authorities) in providing them different care services still seems insufficiently researched in the Polish-language literature. In Polish society, citizens prefer that the informal care needs of older adults are assiduously met by family members. However, the months of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown have clearly shown that this traditional model of informal care is not always possible in practice, and that family members are increasingly turning to regional local authorities to assist them in the care requirements of older and frail relatives. Many family members are not always ready to provide care for older relatives at home due to a lack of appropriate knowledge and assistive aids.

Citations

Author (1)