The fight against sedentary lifestyle, and the practice of physical activities for aging people, are at the heart of public health issues. Their purpose is to preserve the health of seniors, to avoid the escalation of care and to prevent the loss of autonomy. The report “Physical and sporting activities for the elderly” testifies to the commitment and the will of the public authorities to provide concrete solutions for the increasing number of seniors.
15,602,777 French people are over 60 years old and this elderly population, so numerous, is today divided into 3 groups: healthy or “robust” people, fragile individuals, and dependent people. The public health challenge is therefore ultimately threefold. It must make it possible to maintain the population of the elderly in good health, to “reverse” if possible the status of fragile and to give to “dependent” people as much autonomy as possible.
Priority recommendations of the device
The intentions of the report are to inform the public thanks to the implementation of an information campaign on the existing devices intended for seniors, caregivers but also health professionals, to train professionals in “prescription” of physical and sporting activities and their adaptation for people identified as being at risk, excessively sedentary or advancing in age.
The report also recommends the establishment of health workshops in retirement preparation courses, and the creation of a “sports health” booklet for seniors. It insists that the management of physical and sporting activity become an act of prevention integrated into the collective contracts of mutual or complementary health insurance and that the intervention of sports educators be integrated into the “prevention” budgets of EHPADs (establishments accommodation for dependent elderly people).
This public health system must be long-term and respond to changes in the population. Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, specifies that the European population should continue to age, with the proportion of those aged 65 and over rising from 17% in 2010 to 30% in 2060, and that of those aged 80 and over increase from 5% to 12% over the same period. Especially since according to a survey carried out for the Federation of Home Health Providers, 42% of people aged 60 and over do not practice any sport regularly and a third of them say they devote barely 5 hours to a sporting activity per week.