This isn’t just a worry-inducing statistic, is also a dangerous one. According to several studies, high levels of loneliness places seniors at a much greater risk for early death and makes them harder to rehabilitate from illnesses. Overall, people who experience long-term loneliness suffer from a range of health issues, including memory loss. Loneliness and a sedentary lifestyle can be just as minacious as smoking to someone’s health. So why are so many seniors lonely and what can we do about it?
The rise and fall of the extended family
Many of us remember our grandparents and great grandparents in the home growing up. They were often served as the disciplinarians, the teachers, the caregivers, and the storytellers while our parents went off to work. With the social stigma against living with your parents, even when they are aged, and the shrinking global marketplace creating employment opportunities for families at far distances, it is now common for children to live hundreds of miles away from a parent, only coming back for special occasions and serious health concerns.
In previous generations, before mass transport and seamless global borders, families lived together allowing for the commune of multiple generations in single homes. Seniors were able to pass on their knowledge to the rest of the family and feel useful in the home. In today’s America, very few families live this way. The absence of extended family structures leaves a gaping hole in the fabric of the senior aging experience and leaves seniors seriously vulnerable to loneliness and depression.
Making Friends When You’re Old
Another contributor to senior loneliness is that it can be hard for seniors to relate to younger generations. You may remember back in school when your parents introduced you to a bunch of other children you didn’t know and expected you to make friends. It was a struggle for most of us as kids. Elderly people face a similar struggle, but it is much more difficult.
Unlike children who most likely have not yet formed criteria in friendships, seniors have had a lifetime to develop likes, dislikes, preferences, and biases. Over the years, they have used those criteria to select the friends and the relationships they wanted to nurture and those that they wanted to eliminate. Once aging, retirement, relocation, time and death starts taking those friends and relationships away, it becomes increasingly more difficult for them to find replacements and much harder to find others that they can relate to with similar values.
Seniors also struggle with the physical, psycho-social, and mental challenges that come with aging. These challenges can make a senior unable, uncomfortable or afraid to form relationships with peers, even in settings where they are surrounded by other seniors such as nursing homes and care centers. Doubts regarding whether or not they will measure up, be liked, their life’s success, financial means, activeness and physical limitations, are all some obstacles impacting the senior psyche when making friends.
Sadly, we’ve also broken the traditional social dynamic between youth and seniors which was invaluable in establishing cross-generational relationships. Those cross-generational interactions can be stimulating, nurturing and coping for both seniors and youth and the even exchange of knowledge is healthy. With the absence of that dynamic and the emerging norm where, sadly, seniors are mocked, scorned, ignored, and seen as a burden instead of sources of wisdom and boons, seniors feel like they are at a disadvantage to maintain quality relationships even in their own families. They don’t understand how to relate to this generation which results in their giving up on trying to form relationships that would be nurturing and stimulating for them.
Unlike school, society doesn’t force adults into peer groups where they have to make friends or educate them on the nuances of the generation. For this reason, many seniors feel unsupported to put in the effort they had to as kids to make new relationships all over again.
Shifting The Dynamic
The traditional role of seniors in society has been to nurture and pass down what they have learned to younger generations. The value seen in their wisdom makes them feel useful to the community and gives them a sense of dignity. Sadly, this dynamic is broken in our society resulting in much need. We need to shift the dynamic closer to past traditions while embracing societal shifts.
Dr. Dionne Dixon, Founder of DUTY, senior lifestyle brand, believes that “the wealthiest place on earth is [not] the cemetery,” as stated by Dr. Miles Monroe and Les Brown. She believes the wealthiest place on earth is the intersection where seniors meet the youth to nurture, transfer wisdom, experiences, traditions, values, ethics, and ideas that were not developed. She believes that that intersection is richer than the cemetery, for the same reason investing your money is better than putting it under your mattress, because it has the potential to grow. In the absence of this richest place, the social dynamic, the intersection where seniors nurture youth and vice versa, seniors are at an increased risk for loneliness and depression among numerous other issues.
One of our missions at DUTY is troubleshoot the problem. We know that from a design and resource perspective, traditional health care services are challenged to address this issue. We know that there are very few ministerial bodies worldwide addressing the issue of loneliness in seniors and even fewer senior care delivery models that make this a priority. We know that addressing loneliness in seniors requires more than just giving them activities to do and offering a few rooms and game nights to meet with others.
Our service model encourages mentorships between seniors with skills and caregivers youths who want to learn. Our caregivers give seniors what they need to stay independent, seniors can share their knowledge and help someone else in return. We believe that this sharing can form the foundation of a quality relationship and to alleviate feelings of loneliness.
Also, there’s the chance of forming multiple relationships. Most seniors require multiple kinds of caregivers, so there’s lots of opportunity for this kind of skill-sharing. With effort and a little luck, this brand of cross-generational sharing prevents loneliness-induced depression in seniors and helps them enjoy their lives.
If you are caring for an elderly person and you can’t seem to connect with them, ask them about their past experiences. See if they can teach you something they learned. Be curious about the wisdom they hold. You might be surprised at the results, both in what you learn and how it improves the mood and health of your charge.
