Synergy Elderly Care currently focuses on five major thematic areas including:
1. Lobbying and advocacy. To address some of the needs especially at national, community or family levels, synergy elderly will conduct lobbying and advocacy activities such as meetings and workshops, in which the needs of the elderly will be identified, both short term and long terms, and concerned parties involved in discussions on how these can be met. The team will also take part in international foras where issues of the elderly are being discussed, such as THE Global Alliance for the Rights of Older persons (GAROP), International Federation on Aging (IFA) and others.
2. Hygiene and sanitation. This has over the years of our academic research, been identified as one of the most pressing need and most urgent problems experienced by the elderly especially those with limited access to physical personal care. Personal hygiene and general sanitation needs of the elderly are challenged especially with their inability to conduct their personal activities of daily living.
3. Appropriate technologies. The importance of assistive technologies in promoting independence, mobility and social interaction of the elderly has been emphasized in research. Whereas a lot of imported technologies are assigned to the elderly, a lot of it is inappropriate for their age, physical environment and cultural settings. Synergy elderly care seeks to promote simple, affordable and appropriate technologies, objects or artifacts that can be used to ease the life of elderly people especially those that acquire physical impairments as they age.
4. Nutritional and health care support. Feeding is very important to ensure improved quality of old age. However, for the elderly in Uganda, feeding is increasingly being challenged, by physical absence of food, but worsened by the absence of caretakers too. Synergy elderly care wishes to mobilize and provide direct food and nutritional support for the elderly through all acceptable and possible means.
5. Research and education. To enable us implement evidence based actions, Synergy Elderly will invest time and resources in conducting studies on the best approaches, changing dynamics and situation of the elderly to ensure that the proposed programs and actions are relevant and suitable. Research findings will be used to educate the general public, including caretakers on the best approaches to be used in providing the much needed care for the elderly.
