Ideas, Products, Services…Social Innovation for Elderly Persons

Ideas, products, services… These are the stuff of social innovation. Yet, while the emphasis of many definitions of ‘social innovation’ is on the ‘newness’ of the ideas and products, ‘social innovation’ is also about the application and adaptation of ideas and products that already exist, and that have existed for a long time, to the new phenomenon of the large and exponentially-growing population of elderly persons in the modern world. In a social sense, ‘social innovation’ is required to create ideas, products, and services that transform and update modes of behaviour and change attitudes, perceptions, prejudices, and stigmas that relate to ageing and to elderly persons in general, such that stereotypes are deconstructed and equality fomented at all levels across all generations. The ultimate aim of ‘social innovation’ should be to help the elderly help themselves. In order for this to happen, with the support of all the ideas, products, and services deriving from ongoing ‘social innovation,’ elderly persons can be helped to develop their own potential for ‘self-help,’ and to learn, functionally and practically, how to sustain a low level of social, economic, and health-care dependency for as long as their personal circumstances permit. The book is a compilation of research studies carried out in several European countries and in Canada, by persons working in diverse disciplines.