ABSTRACT

The concept of successful aging encompasses the avoidance ofdisease and disability, the maintenance of high physical andcognitive function, and sustained engagement in social andproductive activities. However, social relations for most of olderpeople are getting weaker owing to experiencing a variety oflossess and unhealthiness as the time goes on, and thus they needsome help from someone and receive the help. The purpose of thisarticle is to review the importance of developing and maintainingthe social relations, while focusing on emotional support, for theolder people in staying healthy as well as recovering their health.The structural and functional aspects of social support, differenttypes of social support, effect of losing a primary source of socialsupport (spouse), quantity and quality of social support, perceivedsocial support and so on were concretely discussed in this article.It was mentioned how to measure emotional support in the lastpart of this article.