Wstecz Psychosexuality of senior citizens

Older people are often denied the right to have and show romantic feelings, to want to build close relationships, to pursue a sexual life. Society regards such behaviour as inappropriate, immoral at this age. Caregivers of seniors sometimes have their own resistance (e.g. due to upbringing, personal negative experiences) to talking about this sphere of life, which prevents them from adequately supporting seniors in meeting their needs. They experience frustration during awkward situations (e.g. jokes by seniors with sexual overtones), they do not know how to react when seniors show affection to each other, they do not feel competent when asking seniors about topics related to their psychosexuality. They sometimes scold seniors for so-called inappropriate conversations or behaviour. Seniors feel ashamed and helpless, and feel that they have no one to talk to about topics that bother them. They do not know what is the norm at their age and when to seek specialist advice. Meanwhile, close relationships and the realisation of psychosexual needs are an essential part of psycho-physical health and feeling satisfied with life at any age.

The guide enables you to diagnose, or at least discern, the problems and needs of older people in the community, as well as their carers. The guide provides a description of the competences and skills needed to conduct training and meetings with seniors. A table with supporting questions is used to identify the strengths of the people in the team, as well as areas that still need to be developed.

The next step after analysing the aptitude results is to create the Psychosexual Team. This team can include a variety of people, not only from the therapeutic team (nurses, physiotherapists, administrative staff and priests, among others, also have a range of competencies to work in the psychosexual field). The members of the Psychosexual Team can support each other emotionally and substantively, exchange ideas and thoughts, develop an intervention plan for difficult situations, and create working standards that are in line with the team's beliefs. The Intimacy Attitudes Questionnaire for People with Dementia included in the Supplementary Material in the handbook can be used for this.

A training programme should be developed based on the guidance in the handbook and sample scenarios can be used. An evaluation of the activities should take place after the training.

• Direct addressees, i.e. senior citizens, particularly those in institutional care (senior citizens' homes, nursing homes, etc.) or community and home care;

• Indirect recipients, i.e. people working with older people, such as carers and institutional carers.

• People working with older people;

• carers and institutional carers.

• Sexologists;

• psycho-educators;

• people from the target group.

In order to implement innovations you need:

• the openness of individuals and institutions or organisations working with older people about their psychosexuality;

• the involvement of institutions and community care for older people and the involvement of local government units and non-governmental organisations working for the benefit of older people;

• continuous information activities aimed at institutional and informal caregivers of older people, breaking the taboo related to psychosexuality of older people;

• continued building of a support network focused on the topic of psychosexuality in older people;

• attracting funding from various sources;

• an active person or team coordinating activities.

Tel: 785962631;

E-mail: biurocies@gmail.com.