Wellbeing in Later Life



Wellbeing in later life

Introduction

The well-being is a state that involves all aspects of being human. The term wellness has two main designations, the one physical and one that is psychological (George & Brief, 1992). The physical well-being is defined by the feel of a healthy physiological general, satisfaction of basic needs of the body. It may include the lack of tiredness and stress. Psychological well-being comes from a personal and subjective evaluation that can come from various satisfactions, financial, professional, and sentimental but also the absence of mental disorders (Withorn, 1998).

The concept of welfare over the years has undergone many changes and expansions, which led to a vision of the most comprehensive term, no longer centered on the idea of absence of disease, but as an overall state of good health, physical, mental and mental. This vision is cornerstone of many disciplines and schools of philosophical thought, Western and Eastern, with recent confirmation in the medical-scientific. Welfare is commonly perceived as a condition of harmony between man and environment, the result of a process of adaptation to multiple factors that affect lifestyle (Schimmack, Oishi & Diener, 2002).

Even in the report of the European Commission on Health systems and health policies (which involved the detachment of the European ' WHO ) has been proposed definition of welfare as “the emotional, mental, physical, social and spiritual of well-being that enables people to achieve and maintain their personal potential in society. “ As stated in the report, all five aspects are important, but more important is that these are balanced with each other to allow individuals to improve their welfare (Axinn & Stern, 2001).

Discussion

The concept of wellness is a concept in constant evolution following the pyramid of Maslow, over time the realization of basic needs and desires of some once considered difficult to access leading to the emergence of other needs and desires (Emmons, 1986).

Since ancient times we have studied the factors involved in the welfare and in maintaining a desirable life. However, the emergence of the concept as such interest in the systematic and scientific evaluation is relatively recent. During the decade of the 50's and early 60's growing quest to know human welfare and concern for the consequences of industrialization, it be a need to measure welfare by statistical social indicators measure that would allow events related to the welfare of a population (Diener & Diener, 1998).

The study of the factors involved in human welfare has evovled. In the beginning, well-being was studied from two perspectives, one economic and one biological. The biological perspective provided for the presence of an optimal health (no illness) to rise to well-being. The economic perspective focused attention on macroeconomic indicators, in this Thus, the welfare of the population was measured by per capita income, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the basic basket, employment, housing, environmental conditions, among others. So, initially, “living standards” was the adopted term to refer to these conditions that, in principle, basically were confined to the area ...