ABSTRACT
The chapter concerns the situation of older persons in Poland, observed from March 2020 (the so-called first lockdown) to autumn 2020, i.e., during the emergence and increase in the incidence of the Covid-19 epidemic. Widespread information on the risks related to the threat and mortality from Covid-19 exposed the critical situation of older people as a sub-population at risk of death from the use of comorbidities. We recognise that the introduction of the state of the epidemic in Poland showed real trends of social isolation and social selection of older adults. It results from the primacy of population survival, rooted in society. Disclosed infections and an increase in mortality in nursing homes, the need to regulate medical equipment, isolation from other social groups, justified public health issues, de facto discovered deficits of various groups to protect of older people. Physical protection of life became the cause of the death in the social dimension. In connection with alarming phenomena we pose questions about ways of enhancement of family care potentials and local community care potentials. In this chapter, we analyse the available data and formulate theses regarding the impact of the medicalisation of old age (intensified by the pandemic) on the position of older adults and their social perception, and the consequences of medicalisation for the development of ‘silver social work’ in Poland.
