Loneliness in old age
Carola Felchner is a freelance writer in the medical department and a certified training and nutrition advisor. She worked for various specialist magazines and online portals before becoming a freelance journalist in 2015. Before starting her internship, she studied translation and interpreting in Kempten and Munich.
More about the experts All content is checked by medical journalists.As some people get older, so does loneliness. This can have various reasons: physical ailments, deceased acquaintances, busy relatives. In the current Corona crisis, the contact options are also significantly limited. Whatever the cause, involuntary loneliness in old age is not nice. Read here how you can counteract loneliness in old age.
Tips against loneliness in old age
Limited mobility, friends who fall ill or die, relatives who have little time or who live far away: the reasons for loneliness in old age are diverse. But there is a lot that can be done about it. Some things are not possible in the Corona crisis, but you can already think about what could help you and make appropriate contacts.
Have the courage to network
If you don't dare to seek contact in your real environment, you can start with it in the virtual world. On networks such as nachbar.de or nextdoor.de, for example, you can communicate with the immediate neighborhood in the neighborhood and find out all the news.
Offers such as Feierabend.de or seniorentreff.de bring like-minded people together. So networked, loneliness has no chance in old age - whether corona contact restrictions or not.
Anyone who is not familiar with online use can take appropriate courses at the adult education center or ask children, grandchildren or other friendly people for an introduction.
Use charitable offers: If nobody is there to talk (at the moment), people over 60 years of age can use offers such as Silbernetz. Volunteers are available every day from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. for a short phone chat on 0800/4708090 - this can also be done anonymously if the caller prefers it.
Get involved on a voluntary basis
If you are still physically fit enough, volunteering can give you meaning and contacts. This can be services in a world shop, helping with a board or taking on a task in a (sports) club on site. This gives structure and the feeling of doing something useful, of being needed.
Move into a multigenerational house
There are currently around 540 federally funded multigenerational houses in which people of different ages live together and create space for joint activities or promote them through appropriate offers.
Use a visit service
Volunteers are involved in aid organizations such as the Maltese, but also in initiatives such as "Kölsch Hätz", who, on request, give time and attention to those in need or to lonely people.
Loneliness in old age: what relatives can do
One possibility, as a relative, to take away the feeling of loneliness from loved ones at least a little, is to be implemented from almost anywhere in the world: digital communication.
According to the German Age Survey 2019, at least around 40 percent of 79 to 84-year-olds in this country have an Internet connection and use it. This opens up various options for them and their relatives, especially in times of the Corona crisis, for example:
Make social media accessible
It is often an obstacle and deterrent for older people to have to create an account and set up a profile. Relatives can also help here from afar. Currently, only 19 percent of people aged 65 and over use social networks, and they are a quick and comparatively easy way to keep in touch with loved ones.
Make "video meetings"
Depending on whether a smartphone or a laptop with the corresponding function is available, older people and their relatives can meet for a video chat over coffee, the grandparents can see the grandchildren and even dinners can be organized - possibly including cooking the at the same time same court!
Anyone who would like to maintain or initiate contact in the same way also has various options:
Initiate telephone circles
Yes, everyone has their everyday life and everyone has a lot to do.If you do not have the time (or would like to take it) to call parents, grandma or grandpa at least once a week, you can work out a sequence of when and who will call with your siblings and other relatives. So the called person has regular contact with people close to him and the risk of loneliness in old age can be minimized with little expenditure of time.
Tinker and send gifts
Anyone who has (small) children who cannot or only rarely see their grandparents at the moment or because of spatial separation, can paint pictures with them for grandma and grandpa, which then end up in their mailbox as a small greeting by post. Tinkering and sending cards is also a nice way of saying “I'm thinking of you”.
Recognize loneliness in old age
It is very difficult for those in the environment, which often do not live in the same place or even in the same country, to notice early on that an elderly person is feeling lonely. You should be clairaudient when your loved ones
- hardly have anything to say on the phone,
- spending a lot of time in front of the television judging by the topics of conversation,
- When asked about previous activities such as gymnastics meetings or game evenings, statements such as “I don't do any more” are consistently made.
Even if all of a sudden there is hardly any fresh food left in the refrigerator or if the person concerned no longer values a well-groomed appearance, this can indicate that they hardly go outside and feel lonely. Then relatives or other people in the vicinity can and should speak to the person concerned calmly and cautiously. Because loneliness can have serious consequences.
Loneliness in old age: causes of loneliness
Often there is no single cause for loneliness in old age. It's a process. For example, physical limitations occur more frequently with age: dizziness when standing, pain in the joints when walking, hearing loss.
All of this doesn't exactly motivate you to go outside and make contact. For fear of not being able to cope with a distance or not being able to follow a conversation, many older people prefer to stay at home.
Thinned out circle of acquaintances
In addition, the social network is thinning: Often, friends and acquaintances of a similar age are no longer as mobile, sick or have already died. Children and relatives have their own everyday life and rarely come by. According to a project report by the Ruhr University Bochum (Bücker & Luhmann, 2019), 23 percent of the very old receive visits from relatives less than once a month.
Social contact crumbles in different places - often at the same time. And even if the risk of loneliness in old age has not increased in recent decades, according to the Federal Ministry for Family, Seniors, Women and Youth (BMFSFJ), it will be in the coming years simply because people are getting older give more and more elderly people who feel lonely.
The German Center for Aging (DZA) assumes that the group of 80 to 90 year olds will double by 2050. Exactly the group that is particularly vulnerable to loneliness.
Contact restrictions in the corona crisis
Contact restrictions like in the times of Corona, however necessary they may be, since according to the current state of knowledge older people belong to the risk group, the feeling of loneliness in old age can still be felt. For many, it is not easy not to be allowed to see children and grandchildren, especially since there is not always the possibility of video telephony or an Internet video call.
Consequences of loneliness and isolation in old age
Loneliness in old age can have psychological and physical effects. And the consequences are manifold.
Lack of meaning in life
Often old people no longer receive positive confirmation from others or do not notice them because they hardly maintain contacts or take on social tasks. This gives the feeling of not being needed, of being superfluous.
Budding fears
People who feel lonely often feel a great deal of insecurity and perceive their environment as more threatening. For fear that something negative will happen, they withdraw even further.
Loneliness as a health risk
Those who sit almost exclusively at home no longer receive any stimuli from outside and do not move enough: this affects the joy of life and health. The risk of cardiovascular disease increases, as does the likelihood of developing depression. The risk of dementia also increases.
Lonely or alone?
Not everyone who is socially isolated is lonely, and not everyone who feels lonely is socially isolated. The terms “social isolation” and “loneliness” describe different phenomena. The former means that there is de facto little or no contact with other people. However, this does not have to be a psychological burden on the person.
Loneliness, on the other hand, is a subjective sensation. You can also feel lonely in the midst of people, for example because you don't notice me or don't understand me. For example, an elderly person can live in a supervised residential complex, where they see their neighbors every day and perhaps even have the opportunity to have a coffee party together, and still feel lonely. Loneliness is the unpleasant feeling of not having the social relationships that are necessary or desired for one's own well-being and the feeling of belonging.
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