On behalf of the Program Committee of the VIII International Congress of Disability and Life Quality “Long term care integration: care for the future”, we want to welcome you to the Congress that, for the first time in 16 years, will be held online on the 20th and 21st of October, 2021.

After having established our Congress as a standout technical-scientific meeting not only in Spain, but in the global fields of disability and the quality of life of the elderly, and in the field of integration of social and health services, we could not stop hosting it for limitations imposed by COVID. We will try to transform the terrible “COVID problem”, which affects the entire planet, into an opportunity. The online format of the Congress will allow us to have more participants from many countries and all of us will benefit from the expansion of our knowledge forum. We are working with leading professionals to make the online format a success.

We all want to increase life expectancy and wish that the years lived are of highest quality. This makes us prevent and address disability and chronicity as a consequence from the multiple chronic pathologies of increasing prevalence as we age. Our challenge continues to be, therefore, to provide modernity to improve care for our aging populations. Specifically, care that optimizes the benefits of the best possible social and health integration.

This will not be a COVID Congress. It will be a Congress marked - as everything is in our lives - by COVID, beyond the virtual format. And just as we will try to take advantage of this format, from the Congress Program Committee, we will analyze the response given to the pandemic by the social health services of different countries, based on their achievements in terms of integration, with the aim of having positive experiences and learnings. This exercise will include the analysis of what happened in Spain´s residential field, and the consideration of the potential that exists in integrated home care and innovation. All of this with the unavoidable objective of proposing improvements for the future. These contents will be developed through four main modules. We will also have parallel sessions and scientific posters, to complement the core of the Congress with sectorial and specific topics of your interest.

Ultimately, it is about moving forward, so that the years of life gained are accompanied by a decrease in the burden of disease, or at least its limiting effects and, therefore, an improvement in personal autonomy. We are sure that the program will be attractive and useful for all of us who in one way or another are involved with this objective.

It would be a great honor for us to have you in our Congress.

Dr. Josep Maria Via i Redons

President of the Congress’s Program Committee