THE HOMELAND | MANIZALES
According to the Caldas Quality of Life Report 2018-2022 Manizales How are we going, The birth rate in the department decreased. It went from 8.8% in 2018 to 7.5% in 2022. This reinforces the concept that the department ages rapidly and that Manizales is not prepared to be a city friendly to the elderly.
Andrea del Pilar González Marín, physiotherapist, specialist and master in neurorrehabilitation, explains that this phenomenon is due to the fact that worldwide population pyramid changed, it was inverted. “Before the base was strong and large because we had many children and young people, at the top were the old people. Now, the top is much wider. There are more older adults and this coffee area, specifically Manizales, has a characteristic and it is its good level of quality of life that makes people want to come to this city who is calm and kind. Although its geography is rugged, its climate is good and provides security.”
The also professor at the Autonomous University of Manizales and leader of the ‘Manizales friendly city for the elderly’ program adds that lowering the birth rate increases longevity. According to her, before the life prognosis was between 65-75 years and now it is between 85-90 years. “We need to work because Manizales is not adapted to be friendly. We do not have transportation that guarantees the safety of our elderly people and the proof is that the victims in traffic accidents are from this population. There are no large spaces for them, we have to recover outdoor spaces beyond the recrevía, recover cultural areas because they don’t think only about knitting or doing crafts, today they want reading, painting, artistic topics and gatherings.”
Proposals
Marco Ramírez is 70 years old, lives in San Joaquín and indicates that when he needs to go to the Center or to a medical appointment he takes his time, because sometimes the public service does not stop him or is not patient with him when crossing a road. “My children or my grandchildren accompany me because the trips are long and I get tired.”
Andrea del Pilar maintains that, thinking of people like Marco, for five years they have been working on a project so that the World Health Organization (WHO) certify Manizales as an age-friendly city.
To achieve this, they had to submit a proposal and carry out an investigative process in order to make an action plan for the city. “We will work on mobility and transportation, free spaces, social inclusion (care issue), silver economy or silver economy (set of economic activities and opportunities associated with the aging of the population) and health. Those were the five dimensions most violated for us. We work with the Mayor’s Office, the Saldarriaga Concha Foundation, the Lúker Foundation, Incubar, Suma, Ceder and Confa, among others.”
He adds that what is planned is to present proposals to construction companies to think about a city that is built for older people. Likewise, it wants to address public transportation to achieve an integrated transportation system, raise awareness among taxi drivers and have a maximum impact on three places that have the highest risk of accidents with friendly signage for this population.
“In health we have a problem because today all appointments are with virtual appointments or by entering the website and older adults do not use technology. It is not that they do not know how to handle it, but that it is not friendly, it is not built for them and that communication must also be studied.”
Adapt the technology
The Argentinian Gervasio Videla, CEO of Elliecare and expert in silver economystates that we must be aware of the need to care for this population and that technology helps in the care of the elderly to try to build a more adequate city.
“Older adults adopt technology when it is well designed for them. There are several parameters to develop a solution such as, for example, as one ages the color palette is perceived in a different way and the font size on a cell phone is the maximum. We want interaction with devices to be as minimal as possible, but easy and intuitive. When there is a service associated with that technology that is in the power of an older adult and they feel comfortable with it, they do not give it up. What I see is little product and service and that must be changed because the elderly population is the fastest growing segment in the world. “These products must be adapted.”
In that sense, the company where he works created a platform that allows any community to care for, monitor and assist the elderly adults in their care. “We designed the platform with mobile devices. With it we capture information of physiological, cognitive and socio-affective origin. The combination of all these variables allows us to generate personalized alerts for the elderly person and activate an aid system such as an ambulance. It also notifies the family. We are present in Uruguay, Argentina, Mexico and we are looking for a place in Colombia.”
Juan Martín Dussán López, columnist for the newspaper LA PATRIAin the text he published last February 29 in this mediumaffirms that Manizales and Caldas have all the conditions to become a reference in the silver economy in the country because without going any further “we are the oldest population in Colombia, we have to look for solutions to our situation and, in the process, we can take advantage a unique opportunity for development. The objective is to stop seeing old age as a burden. Manizales and Caldas cannot miss. “It is time to start working to turn the region into a development pole for this economy.”
