O zela-a-dor: um enredo protagonizado pelo idoso institucionalizado sobre o cuidador

Abstract

The new configuration of the Brazilian family, with the modernization of society, which included the insertion of women in the labor market, the use of contraceptives, reducing the size of families and the lack of time in current life is changing the care relationship to the elderly, who was related to the family context. As a result, the institutionalization is an irreversible phenomenon, which much of the elderly population is expected to be submited in the coming decades, given the significant increase of this population and the changes in social relations of gender, that absolved the woman from the burden of elderly care and praised the figure of the caregiver of the elderly. Given this reality, we conducted a qualitative research aimed at understanding, in the experience of institutionalized elderly, the meanings attributed to a good caregiver, in order to support strategies for the quality of care provided to this population. The research site was a philanthropic long-stay institution. As methodological strategies for access to narratives of collaborators, it was used the narrative interview mediated by the "chest of memories." For analysis and interpretation of narratives raised, we turn to Gadamer's Hermeneutics. From the dialogue with the narratives we come to three scenes (chapters): 1) "I grow old: and now?" 2) "I'm in a shelter" and 3) Caring is being zealous: dialoguing about the care and the caregiver. In the first scene, the elderly bring the meanings of being old, ranging from the comparison with being a child to the pains and joys, with the central question the autonomy, which can be a joy when held or a pain when she is dwarfed. And so the search for active aging was evidenced in the voices of the elderly. The second scene brings the reality of shelters for our collaborators, pointing out that this alternative was a decision of the other, and bring the gains, as a place to live and be careful and the losses, highlighted on the difficulties of the relationship in a collective environment with other elderly. In the last scene, the act of being zealous was the meaning assigned to care by the elderly. About the caregiver, they recounted the difficulties of delimitation of their professional work place, the work overload and, finally, about the relationship of a good caregiver, they described attributes of Humanized care, full, present in their experiences with their caregivers in a constant interrelation of the instrumental aspects to humanistic aspects, setting the name of "Zela-a-dor" as the one who takes care taking care of all pain. We expect to add reflections to the existing knowledge so that together we glimpse new scripts,the “Zela-a-dor” asks for more scenes, more players and more plot that can foster care strategies that know the institutionalized elderly in their needs aiming a healthy, active and loving aging in an ILPI.