[Empowerment for the elderly].

Active management and controlling of one's social setting is an essential basis for physical and psychological well-being. A concept which aims at building abilities for an individual responsible and autonomous life is empowerment. Due to the demographic development, this concept will become more important for the elderly. In our productive and work-life related society, this age group is often considered as a burden. Their age group-specific potential is not sufficiently recognised and utilised, e.g., regarding its possible supportive role in interactions between a community's generations. This article illustrates different levels and strategies of empowerment for the elderly and analyses some concepts. One of these concepts is health literacy, which is defined as gaining competence, e.g., for the understanding of information or for acting on health-related issues. Studies of association between health literacy and health outcomes in the elderly are represented. Additionally, the promotion of empowerment is part of the prevention and health care, e.g., in terms of "active management" and "passive management". A further focus is improving the empowerment in elderly employees.