Editorial

Abstract

EDITORIALAttention to Elderly Health is the theme of this second edition of 2008. Nothing could be more appropriate than addressing this topic when our reality reveals the great number health care demands placed on our health care system from this segment of the population. The increase in life expectancy and the numbers of elderly among the total Brazilian population has already passed the level of demographic projections into concrete fact, expressed in census data and observed in our daily care of the elderly. Many of these elders enjoy quality health; however, some bring problems acquired in their adolescence or adult life into their senior years. Others develop diseases to which they are now more susceptible, due to the age level which they reach, such as neurodegenerative diseases, for example. As such, for this client base, care has a fundamental significance, for it is through care that these elders are able to minimize losses of their functional capacities and maximize their potentials.Thus, the need for Brazilian Nursing to capacitate its professionals in care for an older population also increases, beyond seeking new care technologies which are able to provide better quality care to the elderly individual and his/her caring family. Clients in this role, the Undergraduate Nursing Courses through implanting new curriculum, have been inserting in a more forceful manner basic content concerning elderly care, seeking health promotion and the prevention of grievances. We verify still the growth in the number of students and faculty involved in university extension projects who seek to care for this clientele and their families in the communities in which they are inserted. This is similar to the situation observed among Graduate Nursing Programs, in which research groups and lines of research have gradually arisen which have permitted the amplification of knowledge in the area of Brazilian Gerontology. From a brief search made in the Brazilian National Council of Scientific and Technological Development (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico), we found registered 84 multiprofessional research groups who work with themes such as: elderly, aging, old, geriatrics, and gerontology. In Geriatric Nursing alone we gound 24 research groups with 16 of these registered as of 2000. As such, it is with great pride that we report that the Graduate Nursing Program at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (PEN/UFSC) counts upon the second oldest Brazilian research group to work within this line of research.The Study Group concerning Health Care for the Elderly (GESPI/PEN/UFSC) was founded in 1982 and commemorates its 25 years of uninterrupted production, including today. Through the pioneering leadership and vanguard vision of its founder and leader, Dr. Lúcia Hisako Takase Gonçalves, GESPI has established itself in the national scenario, contributing to the knowledge construction in the area of geriatric nursing, through the development of research, as well as served as a model for the creation...