Lei brasileira de inclusão: pessoa idosa com deficiência auditiva e o direito ao espaço urbano

Abstract

From the observation of the increase in the elderly population in Brazil and in the world, changes must occur mainly in what concerns the health system, associated with the increase in chronic diseases and health conditions resulting from senescence, such as PARI (Hearing Loss Related to Age). Thus, it is important to investigate the relationship between elderly people with PARI, access to health services and access to the city in correlation with current legislation. The objective of this work was to analyze which are the architectural and communicational barriers that may prevent access to the Specialized Rehabilitation Center (CER) and to the city in general. This is a cross-sectional, exploratory, descriptive and quantitative-qualitative research. We sought to know the CER of Araraquara/SP and carry out a mapping of it to study the facilities and barriers in relation to the accessibility that the service offers. For this purpose, interviews were conducted with managers and workers at the site in addition to mapping. We tried to understand the dynamics of the health service and verify if the rights established by the Brazilian Law of Inclusion and the Statute of the Elderly Person are being granted to elderly people with hearing loss, thus contributing to improve the CER, hearing health policies and access to the city. The findings revealed that the biggest barriers in relation to access to the service and also to the hearing aid were related to transportation and urban mobility, communication, waiting list and social support. While the facilitators consisted of architectural accessibility, the ambience of the place and the well-structured flow of care. The importance of this study is understood, as there is little research on this topic in the literature, but it is still a very relevant subject towards increasing the quality of life of elderly people and people with disabilities in general.