Reptes ètics de l'atenció a la gent gran

The remarkable increase in longevity in our society is good news: we live more and possibly better. But at the same time it poses new challenges, which can also be ethical. In this perspective, we present these thoughts, which aim at providing a vision in terms of co·responsibility. Our background is what we call «The circumscribed squaring of applied ethics» (Nello, 2001): the necessary arrangement of responsibilities that cor·respond to all those involved in a certain social phenomenon –in our case, elderly care· without them being exclusively given to professionals. Thus, they also include responsibilities of the family of the elderly people and those carers that usually help them, without excluding, as much as possible, the responsibility of the elderly themselves. We can also add those responsibilities of health care or social institutions that provide services for the elderly. And we should consider the responsibilities that fall on different political spheres, either legislative or executive, without undervaluing the responsibility of society, which, as a living and articulated organism of all the citizens, sets the ethical level of expectation in front of a phenomenon as the elderly and their responsible approach.