Attention to elderly: perceptions and practices of the Community Health Agents in a capital of the south of Brazil.

Purpose: To verify the perceptions and practices of Community Health Agents (CHAs) related to speech and language pathology issues, aiming at completeness of attention to the elderly.

Methods: The present work is a transversal and descriptive study, in which questionaries made to the CHAs in the city of Florianópolis were employed. The approach consisted in analysing recommendations given by the CHAs during house attendances for Elderly Health Promotion. Guidance on aspects such as hearing impairment, dysphagia and speech disorders were embraced. The results were analysed with STATA 11.0 program.

Results: 187 CHAs participated in this study. 88.24% claimed that never received adequate training from a speech therapist. The great majority (84.41%) give guidance to elderly people on hearing impairment, followed by dysphagia (57.84%) and speech disorders (56.99%). Concerning the training provided by Capital Idoso Program, only 46.77% declared to receive. Furthermore, it was found an association linking the Northern Sanitary District's CHAs to a better perception over hearing impairment and a growing number of reports related to general guidance over the analysed aspects.

Conclusion: It becomes necessary to provide adequate orientation for CHAs, as well as training by qualified speech therapists. This tutoring represents a matter of great importance in order to achieve a more effective work along with the community.