Loneliness and the Health of Senior Citizens: What Do You Need to Know?

Is your elderly loved one feeling lonely? Unfortunately, many senior citizens feel this way throughout their elderly years. Maybe, they lost a spouse or their friends don’t come around much anymore. There are numerous reasons why your elderly loved one may be feeling this way. However, it is important for you, as a family caregiver, to know how loneliness may be impacting your elderly loved one’s health. The more you learn about this, the more you may make it your mission to help them to stop feeling so lonely.

Unhappy

 Senior Home Care Falls Church, VA: Seniors and Loneliness

One of the main reasons why you and senior home care providers should work together to help your elderly loved one stop feeling lonely is so they can be happy again. Most people who feel alone often get depressed. Even if they don’t have a depression diagnosis, the feelings of sadness and loneliness can take over their happy and joyful thoughts. If your elderly loved one is feeling lonely, calling them a few times more than you do now every week could help them to start feeling better.

General Health Issues

Did you know that senior citizens who feel lonely are more likely to have general health issues such as having higher stress levels? The reason for senior citizens who are lonely to have higher stress levels is because they don’t have someone to talk to. In addition, research shows that not socializing can make someone feel as if they don’t matter. That, alone, can increase a person’s stress. If your elderly loved one is having general health issues, it would be a good idea for you or a senior home care provider to visit them more often.

Not Coping Well

Another way that feeling lonely could negatively affect senior citizens is by causing them not to cope well with life’s difficulties. Think about it for a moment. If you didn’t feel that you had people in your life you could turn to when things went wrong, wouldn’t it be quite difficult to cope with tough situations in life? Having to do everything on your own and deal with things without having someone to lean on – that would be tough. If you feel that your elderly loved one doesn’t cope with things very well, it could just be that they need to know they aren’t alone. If this is the case, it may be helpful for you to remind your elderly loved one that you are there for them to talk to about anything.

Conclusion

These are some of the ways that loneliness can affect the elderly. Now that you know about these issues, you can work more on helping your elderly loved one to not feel so lonely.

If you or an aging loved-one is considering Senior Home Care in Falls Church, VA please contact the caring staff at Butters Home Health Care today. (703) 371-2113

Sources

https://www.nia.nih.gov/news/social-isolation-loneliness-older-people-pose-health-risks