Older Persons’ Care

ARTH has been working to improve health and quality of life of older persons in rural-tribal areas of southern Rajasthan since 2018. Poverty, lack of education and mobility among older persons living in scattered villages make it a challenge to reach them.

The World Population Prospects (2024) forecasts significant growth in the population of older persons worldwide by 2050. India and China will make major contributions due to their large populations. Our programme is informed by ground experiences in an iterative manner, so as to make a larger impact. Older persons face decline in physical and mental capacities coupled with social, economical and environmental barriers. Several suffer multiple morbidities that continue for long periods or even till the end of life. Disease specific approaches have been found to be less useful as compared to holistic, person-centred approaches. Ensuring well being and support for healthy ageing using a person-centred approach is therefore the need of the hour.

ARTH’s outreach to older persons in a population of 2,00,000 in 7 blocks in southern Rajasthan

ARTH launched Prabal Yatra – a community based approach towards enabling healthy ageing in low resource settings
- Older persons in a village are registered as members of Prabal Yatra Manch – a platform of older persons
- This includes
  - Health and home environment assessments of older persons to maintain their functional abilities
  - Conducting physical exercise and ‘serious games’ sessions via the monthly meetings of the Manch
  - Supporting older persons to access pension and ration
  - Connecting them to nearby government health facilities if medical care is required
Those requiring specialist care are referred to the District Hospital, at times accompanied by a Helpline Worker who helps them navigate investigations and specialist clinics

In 2020, ARTH introduced the WHO Integrated Care of Older Persons (ICOPE) protocol in its area

The ICOPE approach focuses on functional abilities of an older person and designing a care plan for the person as a whole
It emphasises utilising intrinsic capacities (including cognition, mobility, nutrition, mood, vision, and hearing) and overcoming or negotiating environmental limitations to improve quality of life
ICOPE aims to improve well-being and promote activities for healthy ageing

Results

(till March 2025)

Indicator	n (%)
Registered members	10,130
Prabal Yatra Manch monthly meetings	1,878
PY members who attended at least 1 meeting	4,344 (42.8%)
Health assessments of PY members	2,186 (21.5%)
Home environment assessments	3,160 (31.2%)
Older persons identified with chronic diseases and followed up with	287
Eye related treatments done (glasses + surgeries)	438
Home improvements made after assessment	687
Walking aids to improve mobility	307
Solar lamp to improve visibility at night	85
Older persons supported to get their pension and ration issues resolved	78

Going forward

We are using the ICOPE approach, working with older persons’ intrinsic capacities to enhance their quality of life, while also addressing morbidities
We are also planning to strengthen Prabal Yatra Manch, which we hope will help older persons be more socially active while also improving their health seeking behaviours.

We are refining a model of care to enable healthy ageing among vulnerable sections of the community, and are confident that robust community based interventions to improve the health of older persons can help inform national and state policies as well as programmes.

Older Persons’ Care

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