Article presents critical view on the concept of „ active ageing“ in the light of the phenomen such us socjal disengagement of some of the elderly people. In the author’s opinion the discourse of „ active ageing“, developed for mamy decades, has often neglected the situation and needs of people who lived either in exclusion or have difficulties to be activated becouse of being too frail as result of age and/or very poor health. Those people often cannot get profit from the simple activation incntives but need get other forms of support. According to the article the pressure on activation may even push them into deeper disengagement and exclusion. Those people often cannot get profit from the simple activation incntives but need get other forms of support. Autors argue also that the wish of some elderly people to spend their live not on „ engagged“ activities should be respected and treated as an individual right to choose one’s way of living.