The dangers of aching loneliness in elders and how to help

During the winter of 2020, I thought I was going to die.

Although pandemic hysteria ripped through every news broadcast and social media, I took all the precautions and didn’t think I would die of Covid. 

Loneliness was the virus that attacked my body, my emotions  and my mental health and led me to despair, in spite of all my efforts to control it.

In late December, 2019, I went from a career which inspired me and gave me purpose to snowed-in with my dog. I had mentally prepared myself to spend Christmas Day alone, but wasn’t prepared for the days, weeks and months alone that followed. I Skyped and Zoomed and talked to friends on social media, wrote and walked outside and planted seeds on my dining room table at the first, weak signs of spring. There were times of desolation and tears and weeks when my masked trip to the grocery store was a highlight.

Loneliness kills. 

Although pandemic precautions are waning and life is different now, I learned an empathy at that time for elders who live alone. Loneliness is dangerous to physical and mental health of all of us, but elders who may be more isolated because of mobility or cognitive issues suffer more.

Although these statistics are taken from a U.S. source, they are valid everywhere.

• Loneliness increases the likelihood of mortality by 26 percent.
• Lacking social connections is as damaging to health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
• Coronary bypass patients who report feeling lonely have a mortality rate 5 times higher than other patients 30 days post-surgery.
• Lonely individuals have a 64 percent increased chance of developing clinical dementia.
• People who are lonely report 5 percent more severe symptoms in the common cold than those who are less lonely.
• Those who are extremely socially isolated cost about $130 per month more in Medicare spending than their non- or less-isolated counterparts.

“Loneliness is taking a heavy toll on our nation’s seniors,” says Tamara Lynn Meadows, RN-BC, divisional director of clinical operations in Oklahoma at StoneGate Senior Living, a leading provider of senior living services in Texas, Colorado, and Oklahoma. “As research continues to quantify the realities of senior isolation, healthcare professionals are focused more than ever before on spotting lonely patients and determining the best way to support them.” 1

Statistics usually leave me cold, but these ones frighten me. What can we do to combat loneliness, not only in elders who live alone, but in those moving to long-term-care far from their families and friends, as is the plan of the Ontario government? 

Stay tuned…

1. https://stonegatesl.com/one-is-the-loneliest-number-combating-senior-isolation/

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