When the pandemic started, we panicked.
Each day, the numbers of those getting sick–horribly, devastatingly sick, and dying, were climbing. Messages bombarded us from all sides about how to stay safe and we listened to them all. Wash your hands unceasingly, don’t touch your face, wash your groceries or leave them in the garage for two days, stay away from everyone, wear a mask, wear two masks. Isolate, isolate, isolate.
Elders, under no circumstances, should leave their homes or see family or friends. Those in care homes needed to stay in their rooms. All activities were cancelled, dining rooms closed and family waved at them from the street. We were told to “flatten the curve.” We were afraid and did whatever it took to keep everyone safe.
After several weeks, numbers went down. The measures we’d put in place were working but a new spectre emerged. Elders sitting in their rooms watching TV all day experienced dramatic cognitive decline. Some who were bridge players suddenly couldn’t string sentences together. Those who were walking with physio every day lost all mobility. Depression ran rampant. And they didn’t recognize the family waving from the street.
We lost some to covid-19 who never had the disease.
Social isolation and the resulting loneliness is also a killer.
Long before the pandemic began, Dr. John T. Cacioppo and his wife Stephanie, also a Ph.D. began groundbreaking research in this area. Dr. Cacioppo passed away in 2018, but Stephanie has continued studying the roles of loneliness and isolation in the lives of elders. 1.
Social isolation is a physical state. We are isolated, separated from other people. When this is prolonged, it can, and usually does, lead to loneliness. The feeling of loneliness is common to us all at times, but imagine if your isolation was mandated, or perhaps thrust upon you by life circumstances such as the death of a spouse. Isolation stretches into the known future, and loneliness becomes unrelenting and spirals deeper.
Listen to the voices of some who are living it:
Dr. Steve Cole, doing research at the University of California, Los Angeles, has discovered ways in which loneliness can attack and eventually destroy our physical bodies.
Loneliness acts as a fertilizer for other diseases. The biology of loneliness can accelerate the build up of plaque in arteries, help cancer cells grow and spread and promote inflammation in the brain leading to Alzheimer’s Disease. Loneliness promotes several different types of wear and tear on the body. People who feel lonely may also have weakened immune cells that makes them more vulnerable to some infectious diseases. 1
Someday, perhaps by the end of this year, the pandemic will be under control and life will return to some form of normal. But what will that mean for our lonely elders? And what lessons will we take away to bring connection, community and purpose to them in the future?
Next week: How can we help?
- https://www.nia.nih.gov/news/social-isolation-loneliness-older-people-pose-health-risks
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