Sexuality in Older Age

Abstract

Introduction: The issue of sexuality in the elderly was generally unaware of society or, even worse, it was treated with mistrust and mockery. However, in the last few years the issue has a steady presence in the media as well as in the research literature. Perhaps this is how society leads to an acceptance of the elderly as a sexual being, reaching a more comprehensive understanding of sexuality and the ability to experience sexual fulfillment while managing the potential obstacles that aging. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the recent Greek and international literature on the sexuality of the elderly, as well as the dementia aspect of sexuality at that age. Material and Method: English-language bibliography was searched in the online Pudmed, web of Science, googlescholar, medline and CrossRef databases with the keywords "sexuality, age, aged" and all possible combinations using AND and OR from 2003-2017. Results: The study showed that sexual life is a need for a large proportion of the elderly, including people with dementia. However, society is not sufficiently informed about this, but the structures hosting the elderly do not adequately cover the issue. Care must therefore be taken to ensure that these needs are adequately covered and that information is available to society. In particular, health professionals should be trained in order to be able to cope with all aspects of this activity of the elderly in all their professional settings. Conclusions-Proposals: The above bibliographic review leads us to the conclusion that the expression of sexuality in the elderly exists, is natural and is a right that society, relatives and nursing staff have to respect. In addition, people with dementia also have these same needs and rights with all the elderly and - of course - all the people. Thus, in nursing homes special measures should be taken to facilitate these activities, and the environment should be informed about how to encourage this physical activity but also how to deal with situations that deviate from otherwise tolerable behaviors.