MWCC supports the Osteoarthritis Foundation International (OAFI), under the OAFI Space initiative. This is an unprecedented program at a national and international level, the result of OAFI R&D, which observes, reviews and certifies spaces based on their adaptability to joint health and which has recently certified the Ballesol Mirasierra Residence for the Elderly ( Madrid) as a space that promotes and protects the joint health of its residents.
The Ballesol Group has been the first to obtain the OAFI Space certification in terms of functional suitability as spaces that promote active aging. The Ballesol Mirasierra Senior Residence has been the second to receive this recognition, previously awarded to the Ballesol Almogávares Residence (Barcelona). The certification ceremony, held this Thursday, September 28, on the occasion of the International Day of Older Persons (October 1), has been a place of vindication about the importance of caring for and adapting the spaces in which we live to the needs of our elderly , in order to guarantee that they have active and healthy aging.
It is estimated that in Spain there are more than 7 million patients with osteoarthritis and more than 3 million with osteoporosis, diseases that affect the proper functioning of our joints and that highlight the need to live in spaces that adapt to our joint health. It is estimated that in our country there are 782 fragility fractures per day and 33 per hour, with our homes, and specifically the bathroom, being the spaces where they occur most. Given the difficult recovery of these fractures and the high mortality rate they entail (up to 20%), it is necessary to adapt the spaces to the people who live in them in order to prevent this type of accidents.
Likewise, with the progressive aging of the population (it is estimated that in 2050 those over 60 years of age will be more than 40% of the population), these data will continue to grow, making clear the need to establish measures that help us age in a healthy way. and to avoid possible falls and fractures due to the increasing prevalence of these diseases. In this sense, OAFI and Ballesol and on the occasion of the International Day of Older Persons, call for the need to adapt spaces to our elderly, and not our elderly to the spaces in which they live.
For this reason, the OAFI Foundation launches the OAFI Space program, with the aim of adapting spaces to the joint health of the people who live in them, thus avoiding falls and fractures, including a new health perspective within spatial design. Carried out by a multidisciplinary team of experts in architecture and medicine, OAFI Space certifies and reconfigures spaces according to the needs of people with diseases that affect the mobility of their joints.
