Elderly in India: A quality of life of elderly persons in institutional settings

Populations around the world are rapidly ageing. Ageing results from decreasing mortality, and, most importantly, declining fertility. The percentage of older persons in our country is increasing. The experience of being older is also changing. These changes come about through new technologies and values characteristics of a new historical period. Quality of life is a vital service outcome measure that is relevant to the care of old age people. There has been a shift in the management of old age people from quantity and quality of survival in international research studies. A disturbance in any one aspect will in turn affect the other domains and this influences the overall quality of life. The quality of life is a general term integrating several aspects of life such as physical, psychological, social, economical, spiritual, cognitional and sexual dimensions. In Kerala, while analyzing the reasons for preferring old age homes by the elderly people brings to light so many concerns that suggest that the quality of life should be improved and made accountable. The main purpose of the study is to study the quality of life of old people leading institutional life. The specific objectives of the paper is to (a) understand the institutional history of the respondents (b) to understand the level of satisfaction in the available resources of the respondents and (c) to understand the quality of life of the respondents by analyzing the various elements of life of the elderly population. It is a descriptive cum diagnostic study. The Universe of the study includes the entire elderly persons living in a governmental care home in Trivandrum district. The unit of the study is a single elderly person living in a governmental care home in Trivandrum district. Random Sampling method was used by the researcher and the data analysis and interpretation was carried out with the support of statistical methods. The findings and suggestions are discussed in this paper.