Fitness is the key to wellness and life-long independence. This is the third program in the National Film Board's distinguished series on aging. In Don't Take My Sunshine Away , producer Lyn Wright surveys health care programs for the elderly worldwide. She finds that in Great Britain and Scandinavia, there has been a particular success with programs supporting the elderly in their own homes. In those countries the culture is kinder to old people.
Communities are more tolerant and caring and the elders are treated with dignity.
In the United States, when there is home health care, it is not only a more humane way of caring for the elderly, but also much more economical than institutional care. This reassuring film examines normal, healthy aging, showing that it is part of a gradual biological process that begins at birth. Our hearing becomes less acute after age ten, we lose height after twenty-five, and our immune system declines in our thirties. And yet our body adapts and we hardly notice these changes. It is interesting to note that we are the only species to age beyond the reproductive years.