In other words, it examined to what extent seniors lend a hand by assisting others with their daily needs, such as transportation, help around the house, or personal care, and to what extent they receive this type of help themselves. The survey found that social support was given and received mainly within the family setting, and seniors on the whole tended to provide assistance more often than they received it. Subsequently, in 1996, data collected by Statistics Canada found 84 per cent of all seniors reported that they were getting some kind of help around the house from family members, neighbours or friends, but only 10 per cent were formally receiving help from a social service agency. Personal dependency clearly can increase with age, since ageing tends to bring a decline in one's abilities and health. On the other hand, helping is a two-way street.
Many seniors also provide a great deal of support to others.
Ageing is not synonymous with institutionalisation or complete dependency on others, but unfortunately these stereotypes too often prevail. This portrait of seniors' personal lives, although it is only a snapshot, indicates that seniors, generally, are healthier and more independent than other members of society recognise them to be. Observing, by way of its initial research, a disparity between seniors' actual autonomy and societal misconceptions about their dependency, the Commission has been prompted to question whether the law reflects a similar discord in how it treats older adults and affects their close personal relationships. The Commission's initial scan of the legal landscape identified a number of ways that the law, directly or indirectly, has a negative impact on seniors' close personal relationships. The Commission hypothesises that these effects may be symptomatic of the divide that exists between the reality of seniors' relationships and how others perceive them.