Tuesday, November 11, 2025.- Under the slogan “Caring together, we will care better”, the 10th International Congress on Dependency and Quality of Life has inaugurated its tenth edition in Barcelona as a space for dialogue and proposals to advance towards a sustainable, accessible, and person-centered care model, and move towards greater socio-health integration. All this has already been made clear at the opening of the meeting, which will last until tomorrow. In the first sessions, experts in accessibility, caregivers, public officials, and representatives of the private business sector and the third sector have agreed that “maintaining care means sustaining life” and that the future involves integrating health, social aspects, and environmental design. Furthermore, throughout this first day, greater funding for the care system has been demanded, in accordance with current challenges and in line with the level of social investment of European and OECD countries.

Almost 10 million people over 65 years of age live in Spain, representing 20% of the population. In addition, there are more than 650,000 people over 90 years old and nearly 16,000 centenarians, 80% of them women. Aging that accelerates and will intensify with the arrival of the baby boom generations to old age.

Life expectancy is increasing, but so are the challenges it brings. More than half of those over 85 suffer from chronic diseases. Data that, according to Joaquim Borrás, president of the Edad&Vida Foundation, reminds us of the urgency to continue promoting environments, policies, and services that allow aging well, with autonomy and quality of life. “It is necessary to promote co-responsibility and balance between the public sector and private initiative to face the economic and social challenges of aging with efficiency and sustainability,” he noted in his opening speech.

For her part, Mayte Sancho Castiello, general director of IMSERSO, highlighted during the opening session the fundamental role of public policies in the articulation of this system. In this sense, she recalled the reform of the laws on disability and personal autonomy and dependency care, which is in parliamentary processing in the Congress of Deputies.

Sancho also highlighted the need to place listening to and understanding people at the center of public policies, since without the voice of the people there can be no good care: “We are at a moment full of important challenges presided over by scarce investment in our social protection system. There is not enough awareness of care; it seems that it is something that remains in the sphere of intimacy, the domestic, and women. But at this moment it is already a social issue, everyone’s responsibility,” she stated.

The importance of intergenerational relationships

Àngels Bahí, president of the Association of Older People of Valle de San Daniel, recalled the importance of fostering intergenerational relationships so that younger people know the experiences of their elders and can learn from each other. Bahí has been president of the association since it was founded in 2006 with the aim of offering services to people living in this neighborhood, mostly older people.

In her speech, Bahí remarked on the need to create awareness regarding older people, a stage of life that is sometimes “undervalued”. “Medicine has made extraordinary advances and life expectancy has grown a lot. However, society does not take this stage of life into account, because it seems that when a person retires they cease to be considered active. That is where we must insist to remedy this situation,” she explained.

This event tries to offer a snapshot of how this sector stands in a society that is inexorably heading towards aging, but in which there are also people with different needs who must already deal with the lack of sufficient resources or limited accessibility. Among the prominent voices of the Congress is that of the architect Marc Alís, a specialist in universal accessibility and inclusive urban planning, who insisted in his intervention that the design of cities and homes must adapt to new demographic realities. “Until now we designed for a young and mobile adult; but we have to think about people with more limitations, despite age, and also about those who are aging. If a space works for them, it works for everyone,” explained Alís.

The voice of those who care

Journalist and caregiver Gabriela Paz y Miño, also a participant in the opening table, brought a human and testimonial perspective to the Congress, which precisely wants to make all realities visible. “Giving a voice to caregivers is also giving a voice to the people cared for. We are the ones who are closest, who listen to them and accompany their needs and desires.” From her direct experience, Paz y Miño warned about the precariousness of care work and the lack of social recognition that generally exists, since “care continues to be considered minor work, poorly paid and undervalued.” Faced with this, professionals claim that it is not just another domestic service, but about accompanying, sustaining, and dignifying someone's life. She also demanded more psychological and emotional support for caregivers, both family and professional: “There cannot be quality care if those of us who care do not receive emotional support. The mental health of caregivers is the great forgotten issue,” she denounced.

Thus begins a Congress, which gathers more than 600 professionals over two days, and which has spent ten editions noting the multiple existing difficulties in achieving adequate levels of integration of social and health services offered to dependent older people and those with chronic multi-pathology. Persevering in the identification of experiences from which to learn and share knowledge is one of the main objectives of a congress, which faces realities such as the difficulties in recruiting and retaining caregivers, auxiliary personnel, nursing, medical and other professionals in the social and health field, and which warns that we must not minimize the financial insufficiency of the services that make up the welfare state.

More information: www.edad-vida.org

About Edad&Vida

It is a private foundation focused on improving the quality of life of older people and those who are about to become so. Its mission is to promote, from companies in various sectors, in collaboration with research and training institutions and older people's organizations, the search for solutions to improve the quality of life of older people. Its reason for being is to facilitate co-responsibility and balance between the public sector and private initiative, in order to respond to the economic and social challenges of demographic change, acting from a perspective of efficiency and sustainability, generating an independent state of opinion that facilitates the improvement of the behaviors of all actors in the environment of people for when they are older.

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