There’s no getting around the reality that for so many older adults, loneliness continues to be an overbearing part of everyday life. As we have noted in previous posts, even if you have contact with other people and you’re not socially isolated, you may still experience profound loneliness (the subjective feeling of distress when there’s a gap between your desire for social connection and what you actually experience). This may be especially true if you are grappling with the loss of friends or loved ones or the loss of identity post-retirement. In fact, those who see you on an ongoing basis may not even realize how lonely you feel. But those who care for or socialize with older adults would be wise to be on the lookout for behaviors that suggest loneliness, especially given the harmful effects it can impose on both physical and mental health. What kind of behaviors might indicate a person is lonely? Everything from loss of interest in hobbies to excessive enthusiasm for television watching or even obsessive connection with nostalgia can all be signs of loneliness. Someone who is lonely may also seek out chatter with strangers or become overly agreeable just to sustain the social contact that may come with those behaviors. If you have suspicions that an older adult in your life is suffering from loneliness, you may want to encourage them to increase their connection with community programs of interest or even volunteer somewhere, as we have previously highlighted. In fact, a new study published in the Lancet, examining the impact of sustained volunteering on feelings of loneliness in older adults during the pandemic, demonstrated the value of the connections made through volunteering. For more on this study, click here.

Most recent research addressing loneliness, however, underscores the negative impacts of feelings of loneliness on both brain and body. For example, two different studies have recently been published examining its impact on cognitive health and functioning. First, there is a recent study published in Frontiers in Psychology that reports that feelings of loneliness, especially in those who openly acknowledge such feelings, could be an important predictor of how well your brain will age as you get older. This study of over 2700 people aged 50 and above showed that those who more frequently reported feeling lonely had worse scores on some cognitive assessments, though the reasons for this are unclear. Another study published in Nature Mental Health, which comprehensively examined the impact of loneliness on cognitive health, found that loneliness, separate and apart from depression or social isolation, had a profound impact on your risk of dementia, similar to the impact of physical inactivity or even smoking. In fact, according to the analysis, feelings of loneliness could increase your risk of dementia by as much as 31%. While more research needs to be done to clarify and amplify these findings, they leave little doubt about the potential harm that loneliness can cause in those who experience it. 

One additional study raises even more alarming concerns. According to the findings in a new study published in Aging Clinical and Experimental Research, loneliness, social isolation, and living alone (factors related but not always present in the same person) are significant risk factors for all-cause mortality. The study found that social isolation increased the risk of mortality in older adults by 35%, while living alone raised the risk by 21% and feelings of loneliness increased mortality risk by 14%. Each of these factors was also implicated in raising the risk of death due to cardiovascular causes. While an older adult can experience each of these symptoms alone, they often exist side-by-side and the cumulative impact on an older adult can be profound. For more on this research, make a date with a friend and read here. And for an example of how one older woman solved her loneliness problem by creating a new “family” through Facebook connections, put on your headphones and listen here.