DEFINITION OF THE CONCEPT OF «ELDERLY PEOPLE» AS CATEGORIES OF SOCIAL WORK

Abstract

The relevance of the article is due to the process of progressive aging of the population, so it requires society to find new ways of social work with the elderly. The sociological discourse of the concept of "elderly person" on the personal, ideological and family-household levels in accordance with the theory of successful aging is proposed in a systematic way. Despite the sufficient number of studies, in social work today there is no universal concept of the category of "elderly people". Consideration of concepts of successful aging, which are aimed at changing the mass perception of the elderly and old age, aging as a phenomenon, to prevent discrimination and exclusion of the elderly from society, to prevent ageism and stigmatization of this population. The purpose of this article is to characterize the definition of the concept of "elderly people" as a category of social work, its content and essence. To achieve this goal we used the following general scientific research methods: generalization - to determine the essential features of this category, analysis, which consists in combining, reproducing the links of individual elements, parties, components of a complex phenomenon and thus in understanding the whole in its unity components. The category "elderly people" plays an important role in social work, absorbs many features and meanings. One of the important conditions of social work with the elderly is the adaptation of the national social protection system to the effects of demographic change, as well as the adoption at the legislative level of a clear and uniform definition of "elderly"