Thanks to VAN’s Sally Brown for this information.
We’ve all wondered about how loneliness and isolation are impacting people, especially older people, during this pandemic.
Recently VAN’s Sally Brown, who facilitates many of the organization’s Aging with Gusto series, shared some information about the topic of loneliness.
Recently Minnesota Public Radio aired a story about researchers whose work showed that loneliness has NOT risen during the pandemic. The findings were a surprise to the researchers, who did point out that depression and anxiety have increased during this time. Read the article.
Sally also pointed out a similar study on loneliness from this summer. In that study, older adults reported lower rates of loneliness than younger people. “The researchers say they found no racial differences in the responses, but did do an age analysis and found, as have other studies, that people 65 and older tend to be less lonely than the 18- to 64-year-old age group. The prevalence of loneliness in those 65 and older went from 16% in the first survey to 21% in the second and then dropped to 18% in the third.” Read the article.
Sally also provided some additional, general information about depression:
- From CDC data: “The rate of depression increased by age, from 5.7% among youth aged 12–17 to 9.8% among adults aged 40–59, but adults aged 60 and over had a significantly lower rate of depression (5.4%) than those aged 18–39 and 40–59.” Note: In recent years the increase in depression in teens and young adults has risen dramatically.
- “The good news is that the majority of older adults are not depressed. Some estimates of major depression in older people living in the community range from less than 1% to about 5% but rise to 13.5% in those who require home healthcare and to 11.5% in older hospital patients.”
- From NAMI (The National Alliance on Mental Illness): “How common is depression in later life? Depression affects more than 6.5 million of the 35 million Americans aged 65 or older. Most people in this stage of life with depression have been experiencing episodes of the illness during much of their lives. Others may experience a first onset in late life—even in their 80s and 90s. Depression in older persons is closely associated with dependency and disability and causes great distress for the individual and the family.”