Turkish Journal of
GERIATRICS

¹ Hacettepe Ãœniversitesi HemÅŸirelik Yüksek Okulu İç Hastalıkları HemÅŸireliÄŸi Anabilim Dalı BaÅŸkanı ANKARA
² GATA HemÅŸirelik Yüksek Okulu İç Hastalıkları HemÅŸireliÄŸi Bilim Dalı ANKARA
³ Gazi Ãœniversitesi HemÅŸirelik Yüksekokulu ANKARA In this century, because of increased average life expectancy the ratio of aged people population is gradually increasing and world population is getting older. In Turkey, the proportion of older people is increasing along with global population ageing. This demographic change is called as “ageing of population” and its effects are seen in variable forms. Services given to elderly people are affected by sociocultural structure of the society, changes in attitude and behaviors, individual's and society's perception of aging. One of these problems is “ageism”. Ageism can be defined as different attitude, bias, action, and institutional regulations which subordinates a person because of age. Sometimes behaviors directed towards elderly people could exhibit prejudice like racism. Despite seeming harmless, negative opinions about the elderly become permanent because of such prejudices, attitudes toward elderly people affect services that are given to elderly and decrease the quality of care which is provided by health care workers. Formation of supportive systems in order to prevent crisis that occur in elderly, additional effort to increase self-confidence, active participation in the process of establishing self-help groups, providing and supporting interactions that could give a chance to elderly people to express themselves are necessary. Keywords : Perception of ageing, Ageism, Discrimination