ELDERLY PEOPLE

• Increased longevity, good health and independence are key values in their own right and on the upward trend.
• Older people today are healthier.
• The elderly are the fastest growing sector (age-wise) of the population in most developed countries.

The increase in the total population of most European countries will be 2% in the next 20 years; whereas the increase in the numbers of over 65s will be 34%.

Various physical limitations commence on average at about 51.

DISABILITY

Disability is dependent on the environments in which people with impairments are placed.

• Technological innovations which assist disabled people give rise to the feeling that wider changes to the environment are somehow less important.

• The social model of disability emphasises the exclusion, prejudice and devaluation of rights lurking in the medical model.

• Avoid falling into the trap of over-emphasising the value of IT, and under-emphasising real social contact in promoting inclusion, leaving disabled people in a sort of ‘electronic ghetto’.