Social isolation and loneliness in older people

Introduction

Social isolation refers to lack of contract between an individual and society, where there is lack of involvement of the individual with the social activities and leads to loneliness among the people (Chipps, Jarvis and Ramlall, 2017). In the recent era of globalisation, the incidents of social isolation and loneliness are increasing mainly among the older generations, where they are feeling lonely in living in the society and they feel isolated from the social activities and thus this topic is crucial to be analysed for developing intervention planning to tackle the issue of loneliness. Through this essay, it is possible to understand the issue of loneliness and social isolation among the older generations in the society. The essay is also effective to identify the causes and impacts of loneliness among the older generations as well as acknowledge the policies and intervention strategy to support the older people in the society so that they can improve their standard of living and live with dignity, social inclusion and positivity. The topic of loneliness is being chosen in order to analyse the causes of loneliness and its impacts on the individual life style as well as through evaluating the research topic of loneliness, it would also be possible for the researcher to acknowledge the policy framework to support the people, suffering from loneliness.

Causes and justifying loneliness in older people

The issue of social isolation refers to the state in which the individual lacks the sense of belonging in the society, lack engagement with others and has a minimal numbers of social contracts. There is lack of quality relationship in the society where they are suffering from loneliness at the end stage of their lives. There are several reasons for which the older generations become lonely and they start living alone. In the UK, more than 2 million people after the age of 75 years stay alone and feel lonely due to lack of social contracts and relation with others (Chipps, Jarvis and Ramlall, 2017). The reasons include getting older or weaker, no longer being connected with the family and friends, leaving the workplace, the deaths of near and dear ones, disability and illness. These are the major causes of loneliness among the older generations (Noone et al., 2020). The percentage of the international student suffering of loneliness is increasing over the period of time due distance from the family members and lack of social bonding. Globally, two in five people about 41% people become lonelier over the last 6 months. As per the statistics, about 33 percent of adults experienced feeling of loneliness worldwide and as per the analysis; Brazil had the highest percentage of the people feeling lonely in the society. Lack of connection with the friends and family as well as deaths of other family members are the important cause, for which the mental condition of the older generations become weaker and they feel lonely. Additionally, disability and health issues further raise the issue of loneliness among the older generations, where they feel weak and avoided by others due to illness. Ill health and lack of ability further make it more difficult to socialize. Location also matters in this regard where some of the older people stay at the residential care home due to illness and mental disorders as well as due to geographically scattered living activities in modern life, family break up, the people start living apart. Lack of transportation and low physical contract in the society further increases the issue of loneliness and social isolation among the people in their old age and on the other hand, there is high percentage of international student who feel lonely in staying abroad.

Additionally, retirement is one of the crucial factor that raise the issue of loneliness among the older generations, where the person start missing the working activities, social contracts and their colleagues. They also get weaker due to lack of daily routine and going out for work. It is very difficult for the older people to cope up with the stage of retirement due to loneliness, low self-esteem and morale (Chipps, Jarvis and Ramlall, 2017). Low self-esteem and lack of confidence are also other crucial causes of loneliness and social isolation, where the older generation feel negligence and lack of value in engaging with others and participating in the social activities. The stress level, depression is also other causes in the older generations, where the people start living alone, without any social contracts and engaging with others. Financial difficulties in old age also raise the issue of loneliness and social isolation, as financial problems limit their travel and opportunities in socialising (Noone et al., 2020). Hence, it is necessary to identify the older people, who are suffering from loneliness and social isolation; it is difficult to identify the people with the issue of loneliness, due to lack of expressive behaviour and open discussion. The older people are not likely to discuss and communicate with others about their health issues and mental illness, which raise difficulties to identify the people suffering from loneliness and social isolation. It is hereby the role of the health and social care workers to identify the people with loneliness and other mental illness to support and guide them for better social inclusion and developing contracts in the society so that they can live a good standard of living.

For identifying the people, who are suffering from social isolation and loneliness, it is necessary to involve with the people and develop conversation, so that they can feel safe and valued to share their perception and personal information. It is beneficial for the social workers to identify the people, who are suffering from social isolation due to lack of social contracts, illness and depressed. Verbal cues are important to be understood for getting prediction about the older people. Through understanding their wish, information that they share and talking style, it is possible to diagnose the person efficiently (Landeiro et al., 2017). Additionally, the changing behaviour of the person is also indicator to predict loneliness among the people. The appurtenance, low self-esteem and low morale as well as depression are the major indicators of identifying the person, suffering with loneliness. Unexplained health issues and mental disorders are also necessary to be diagnosed efficiently in order to identify the person, who is suffering with social isolation and loneliness. Through these activities, it is possible to identify and recognise the person, suffering from loneliness. There are other issues such as a change of living environment, children moving away, busy lifestyle of the children, lack of quality time spend with the near and dear ones in the family, feeling avoided at home, fear of becoming and burden (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2020). These reasons are crucial in the older generations, where the older people are feeling to be burden for their family members. On the other hand, the hearing issues and talking issues, several health disease and mental illness are also other causes of loneliness that is raisings among the older generations.

Impacts of loneliness among older generations

The People, who find themselves unexpectedly alone due to separation from friends or family, the death of a spouse or partner, loss of mobility, retirement, and lack of transportation are at particular risk on their living condition and mental activities. As compared to this, the people, who are living with the family members get support from their children and spouse as well as engage in meaningful, productive activities with others tend to live longer, are living their lives actively with good mood and mental health. The wellbeing of the individuals with family support at their old age is maximised in long run (Bantry‐White et al., 2018). However, the older generations in the recent years are suffering a lot due to lack of support from friends and family members, poor involvement in productive activities, social exclusion, isolation at home, lack of social contract, retirement and physical and mental illness, for which they feel alone. This further deteriorates the living condition of the people at their old age. There are also other risk factors of loneliness in the older generation that affect the physical and mental condition of the people (Landeiro et al., 2017). High blood pressure, heart diseases and obesity are the major issues that the older generations are suffering from. Due to loneliness and lack of support and social contract, they feel isolated and the issue of blood pressure and obesity are increasing due to overweight, lack of healthy food intake and others. The chance of cardiovascular disease is also increasing at older age, where the people are suffering from heart issues, breathing problems and even stroke. There are also other mental illnesses for which they cannot live healthily in the society.

Loneliness raises the issue of anxiety and depression, where the people cannot share their thoughts and perception with others and they feel avoided and isolated from the society. This raises depression and it leads to stress disorder and sleeping disorder, where their wellbeing is hampered. The other impacts of loneliness among the older generation are cognitive decline, Alzheimer’s disease, and even death. The immunity system is also affected negatively due to poor health condition and lack of health and social services. The social isolated people are also failed to seek and access the health and social care services with the help of the others in the society (Gardiner, Geldenhuys and Gott, 2018). The Altered brain function and Alzheimer's disease progression are also raisings rapidly among the older generation due to loneliness. Alcoholism and drug use is another major impact where the people, who feel alone, start consuming substances in the society. Other impacts of loneliness and social isolation among the older people are altered brain function; decreased memory and learning which deteriorates the mental health condition of the individuals, the cognitive skill and behaviour are also deteriorated over time. Depression, stress and anxiety are also critical issues that may lead to suicidal tendency and self-harm activities, which are dangerous of the wellbeing of the individual at their old age (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2020). The tendency of anti-social behaviour is also rising among the people with social isolation and loneliness and additionally, they become poor in cognitive skill set which leads to poor problem solving and decision making skill.

Intervention strategy and Policy to eradicate loneliness

The UK government and the health care workers try to focus on the causes of loneliness and diagnose the people with their health and mental illness and design the intervention planning for supporting the older generation to overcome the issue of loneliness and lead a better life. The intervention planning and policy framework will be discussed further,

Social prescribing and person centred care

The government of the UK and National Health Service or NHS are working collaboratively to tackle the issue of loneliness and protect the livelihood of the older generation in the society. There are social workers, doctors, general physicians and psychiatrics who are working together to provide prescription to the people, who are suffering from loneliness. Through social proscribing technique, it is possible to book consultation, get advice and access the NHS long term, plan to improve the living condition of the individuals. NHS make digital database system to tackle the older people and social prescribing is considered as a community based support, universal personalised care to maximise the wellbeing of the individuals. In October 2019, the National Academy for Social Prescribing was established, with £5 million of government funding and it is effective to support the people with loneliness and social isolation issue (Morgan et al., 2020). The patient diagnosis and prescribing to lead a healthy life are helpful for the care overs to tackle the issue of loneliness and overcome the barriers of the individuals to stay healthily.

Developing community resources

The government is also efficient to develop community resources for supporting the old age population, so that they can feel involved with others in the society and get valued to participate in the activities. There are exercise programs and free gym activities which are beneficial for the people to get engaged and improve their health condition. Additionally, the NHS Long Term plan cites the Healthy New Towns Programme, active since 2015, through which NHS England seeks to shape how communities plan and design a healthy environment. The housing and tenancy program are also effective to support the old age people in the country (Ige, Gibbons, Bray and Gray, 2019). The NHS campaign to support the older population through free mobile application for exercise, healthy eating habits and providing dietary planning as well as providing the scope to participate in the social competitions and games are beneficial to support the old age population to get rid of the situation of loneliness.

Digital inclusion

In the recent era of globalisation, digital inclusion is one of the interventions planning to support the people with loneliness and social, isolation. Since 2014, the government initiatives to address digital inclusion include the £400,000 Digital Inclusion Fund, the Future Digital Inclusion programme, which supported over 1.4 million adult learners to engage with digital technology. Additionally, £2.6 million fund to help 99% of libraries in England offer free Wi-Fi to users are also useful to support the older generations to read the books that they love to, as well as get engaged with the reading and learning activities (Syed et al., 2017). This is a successful intervention planning for the older generations in the UK, where they are able to access the latest technological equipment, such as laptops and smartphone to access updated information, tread books and other publications and tackle social inclusion through their skill, knowledge, art and others curriculum activities in the society. Digital inclusion is hereby increase the arts, libraries and volunteering activities in the society where the aging people can engage with the social activities participate actively for better performance at their old age (Reinhard et al., 2018). There are cultural programs and activities in which the older generations are encouraged to show their creativity and knowledge in a diverse way so that they can get appreciated and motivated further to perform better in future. Through such activities, it is effective to increase social inclusion among the older people as well as motivate them to manage social contracts and engage with others for performing better.

Targeted support

The health and social care workers are efficient to follow the guidelines of the NHS and the care Quality Commissions or CQC to improve the standard of quality care for the benefits of the people, who seek health care services. The care givers action plan 2018 to 2020 commits the Government to work with the local government to help needy people to “balance their caring responsibilities with their own employment and to preserve their personal health and wellbeing” and implement the duties relating to care givers as set out in the Care Act 2014 for supporting the people, who seek help (Taylor, 2020). There are efficient health care professional team who arrange different programs to the older generation, who feel avoided and isolated in the society. The counselling process is there to support the individuals, where the psychiatrics and counsellors are working collaboratively and communicating with the people with the issue of loneliness. Trough counselling process, the individual is able to share their perception and express their thoughts so that they can get emotional support from the counsellors and improve their cognitive skill set to make good decision in life. Family engagement is hereby important for the care givers to develop cooperative working practice during the counselling process, where the family members and friends are involved to share their initiatives for supporting the old age individual, who feel avoided and isolated (Perissinotto et al., 2019). On the other hand, there is residential care home, for the critical cases, where the individuals are suffering from both health disease and mental illness. In this case, the doctors, general physicians, therapist and psychiatrics are working as a partnership working practice and empower the patient in developing the person centred care plan, so that the old age individual can cooperate with them and resolve the health issues.

Conclusion

Loneliness is hereby a critical issue which raised the health disease and mental illness among the old age generations. The major impacts of loneliness and social isolation are depression, stress, suicidal tendency, self-harm, diabetes and obesity, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease, for which the individuals health condition become deteriorated over time. The government of the UK is efficient to design the intervention program through capital investment and social campaign to engage the older generations with the social activities and feel valued. Digital inclusion and access to library and other social community resources are also beneficial to tackle the issue off loneliness and maximise the wellbeing of the old age population. The research on loneliness is hereby beneficial to understand the intervention planning of the health and social care workers to support the people with loneliness through counselling, government action plan to seek help, treatment and continuous care, digital assistance and developing social resources.

Reference List

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