Abstract
The growing population aging and socio-cultural changes of our time lead to new needs, not only care, but also to meet a new perspective of the concept of health care in which the disease has become of limited action. This study is an essay based on the scientific literature and proposes to think about a small part of this great question: social support as part of comprehensive health care for older persons. For this, a narrative review of the literature was made in Pub Med / MedLine, Crochane and Scopus databases, as well as in the reference lists of the articles found. It is part of understanding the role of social support and micro social networks on the health of older persons. Next, we discuss ways to assess the support and the social network and reflect on the role of social support in the Unified Health System. Finally, it approaches the management of social support. As final considerations the main challenges for the social support is actually considered as a determinant of human health are highlighted.
Keywords:
social support; elderly people’s health; integrality in health