Year started: 2023

The UN declared 2021–30 to be the Decade of Healthy Ageing, and efforts are being made to maximise the functional ability of people over their life course. Yet older people are marginalised and perceived as a burden, particularly those with ongoing loss in capacity. Nowhere is this more conspicuous than in the context of long-term care (LTC) worldwide, where older people in some settings encounter a loss of independence and other violations of their human rights. Such experiences can range from deprivation of liberty and loss of legal capacity and consent to coerced institutionalisation, exposure to abuse, neglect, and disrespect, and persistent use of restraints. These circumstances create inequity, injustice, and indignity for older people. Overcoming these societal and political challenges requires the lens of human rights and a rethinking of the provision of LTC so that it respects the rights of older people and addresses their diverse needs and preferences in fragile LTC systems. A new Lancet Commission on Long-Term Care for Older Persons aims to take just such an approach, fostering person-centred LTC in accord with the WHO Healthy Ageing framework. Our Commissioners bring a wealth of perspectives drawn from different regions, care settings, and areas of interest, with expertise in geriatrics, geropsychology, geriatric psychiatry, gerontology, nursing, palliative care, primary care, social work, clinical epidemiology, health economics, health policy, and regulation. The Commission will work in co-creation with a group of older people from different regions with lived experience of LTC.

Objectives

The Commission will explore crucial questions for LTC. How can LTC be flexible and pro-active, rather than reactive, so that it engages the whole ecosystem, including older people themselves, their close ones, care professionals, and other important partners? What are the optimum ways to improve older people's functional ability and empower them by focusing on their assets instead of their deficits? What adaptations of the physical (including technology) and social home environment are needed to enable older people to remain socially connected and an integral part of their communities? In this Decade of Healthy Ageing, the Commission will strive to devise a roadmap to person-centred LTC that respects and restores human rights and optimises the functional ability and wellbeing of older people with ongoing loss in capacity or who are at risk of such a loss. We seek nothing less than to enable them to take their rightful place in society.

Scope

The Commissioners for the Lancet Commission on Long-Term Care for Older Persons are Debanjan Banerjee, Lieve Van den Block, Julie Byles, Muthoni Gichu, Jaco Hoffman, Terry Lum, Finbarr Martin, Deborah Oliveira, Anne Margriet Pot (Co-Chair); Kiran Rabheru (Co-Chair), Harleen Rai, Hilde Verbeek, Kate Walters, and Winnie Yip.