THE IMPORTANCE OF HEALTH EDUCATION TO THE ELDERLY

Health is a state of total well-being not merely the absence of diseases. As the saying goes “health is wealth”. Health is as important as life itself, carrying out the activities of life can only be done and achieved in a state of total well being. Health can also be said to be a state of full physical and social well-being not as a lack of an illness or an indisposition. Having known the meaning of health we move further to understand what health education is.

WHAT IS HEALTH EDUCATION?

Health education is a process of enlightening people on the importance of taking care of their health, that of their families and the society at large.  Health education process focuses on making the people realize the correlation between their health, lifestyle, physical and social position. There are lots of health education project topics and materials that one can look at to gain more insight on the importance of health education to the elderly. More so, health education can be the sum total of occurrences, which add to the development of desirable habits, attitudes and knowledge, related to an individual, family and the society. Health education is at the same time element of health encouragement.

Health education is a process of teaching that seeks to prevent disease, disability and premature death through education driven voluntary behavior change activities. It is with a sole purpose of influencing the health behaviour of individuals as much as the working conditions that influence their health.

WHAT ARE HEALTH EDUCATION PROGRAMMES

As a result of health education, there is an urgent need to create awareness on the importance of healthy lifestyle especially to the elderly in the society to enable them make decisions as regards their health and improve their knowledge on the prevention and coping with difficult health situations prevalent at old age. In order to achieve this, health education programmes are needed.

Health education programs are well organized health programs for the purpose of educating people on their health and the need to maintain a healthy living as well as a healthy lifestyle enabling them to increase control over their health thereby, improving their health status.

Presently, health education is practically included in all health and strategic programmes carried out at various levels of social life like the family, school, work, cities, global societies and international communities. Most health education programmes are mostly organized by health organizations like the World Health Organisation (WHO), NGOs, private individuals who are health inclined and others.

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF HEALTH EDUCATION

Health problems and unhealthy lifestyle is common among the elderly and it impairs their physical, mental and social well-being due to underlying illnesses that is accompanied with old age while others may lead to an untimely death. There exist many health problems and unhealthy health practices ravaging today’s society. Therefore there is need to understand the benefits of health education as regards the elderly in the society. The benefits of health education are enormous some of which are:

i). Health education creates awareness: health education helps in creating awareness to the need for healthy lifestyle as well as expose illnesses accompanied with old age and ways to manage them to avoid deteriorating health status.

ii). Health status: health education helps to improve the health status of individuals, families, communities and the nation at large.

iii). Quality and healthy lifestyle: Health education enhances the quality of life for all people and lead to healthy lifestyle

iv). Health education reduces costs: the knowledge of health through health education helps to reduce cost of spending on medical treatment by individuals, families and the Nation. Through health education, people will know what to avoid and what to take to improve their health to avoid unnecessary spending on medical treatment as a result of an illness that would have been avoided if they were told what to do.

v). Health education reduces premature deaths: the level at which the young and old die as a result of one illness or the other will be reduced through health education.

ARE THERE ANY CHALLENGES FACING HEALTH EDUCATION

Implementing an effective health education programme for the society and the elderly especially would not be an easy task; however, the first step to solve a particular problem is to identify the obstacles that may militate against the solutions proffered. Health education is faced with a lot of challenges from the planning to its implementation. Below are some challenges of health education.

i). Lack of Inadequate trained health educators: health education has advanced in developed nations more than the developing countries. Most health educators are not health personnel’s or health professionals or even well trained health educators. Because of this, the appropriate knowledge will not be passed and the purpose of health education and health awareness has been defeated. Health education programmes are suppose to be handled by health professionals and well trained too to be able to pass the right message and answer health related questions when asked by the people.

ii). Poor health education methods: Methods of teaching health education are the systematic and organized procedures used in health education. Health education to the people especially the elderly in the community should be practical. The use of diagrams is highly recommended in teaching health education to the elderly and those at the rural areas especially.

iii). Inadequate health facilities and equipment: The process of health education should be from known to unknown which ofcourse requires adequate equipment and facilities. For example, health related films, health charts, radio and television and overhead projectors of which are not available in most health organized programmes in the country especially the rural areas. Many health professionals have blamed this to the inadequate funding of healthy education in Nigeria.

iv). Inadequate funding of Health Education: There are so many programmes competing for attention in the face of limited resources and as a result of the ailing economy of developing Nations therefore, it becomes difficult to convince the government to give priority to health education. Furthermore, the Ministry of Health is not ready to take responsibilities for the funding of health programmes in Nigeria.

HOW DO WE TACKLE THESE CHALLENGES

The health of a Nation says a lot about their growth and development and as such health and Health education should be given priority in every Nation if they must develop as a Nation.

i). Trained health educators:  well equipped and trained health educators should be employed in health education and health programmes to help in proper health awareness.

ii). Good health education methods: good health education methods should be employed in teaching health education especially to the elderly in the society and in the rural areas who are mostly illiterates as such if the right teaching methods are not employed, it will be a futile health program. Adequate provision should be made in health education programmes like the use of diagrams and overhead projectors.

iii). adequate health facilities and equipment: the right health facilities and equipments should be provided for health education programmes.

iv). Funding of Health Education: health education should be adequate funded to provide all necessary facilities and equipments needed for health education programmes.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, Health education is very important especially to the elderly in the society. It will help them understand the importance of healthy living and ways to improve their health as well as how to manage any ill health accompanied with old age. However, health education may not be panacea to all health problems since there is no easy solution to any of the complex problems of living. Hence, combating such problems will definitely take continuous well planned efforts by society’s health agencies. Health education philosophy and practice are based on the fact that human behaviour can be influenced through well organized health programme of instruction.

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