practical living
Loneliness on the rise
An aged-care provider has called for an increased focus on the problem of social isolation , after a report found a surge in disconnection among older people .
Karn Nelson interviewed by Dallas Bastian
Half of Australians aged 65 or older have experienced feelings of loneliness , new research has revealed .
About 1.7 million participants of the study said they had felt lonely , up by almost 300,000 since the survey was last conducted in 2015 .
The Social Isolation and Loneliness Report was conducted by Galaxy Research on behalf of aged-care provider the Whiddon Group , which said a key factor in this result was 4 in 10 respondents feeling cut off from society and their local community .
Karn Nelson , executive general manager of strategic policy and research at Whiddon , says despite technological advancements and an increasing focus on loneliness and social isolation , the issues are not going to be resolved without addressing them directly and providing practical solutions .
Aged Care Insite sits down with Nelson to discuss the report and find out what Whiddon is doing to address social isolation and loneliness across its facilities .
ACI : Why did Whiddon decide to conduct this research ? KN : As a care provider , we are very aware of [ the wealth of ] evidence behind the link between social isolation , loneliness and poor health outcomes . For example , loneliness has pretty severe implications for depression , for levels of dementia , among those who suffer it , for stroke and cardiovascular health .
A recent study was able to prove that being lonely is as bad for your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day or being an alcoholic .
So there were some very tangible and physical reasons as to why you would want to [ investigate this issue ]. [ You are looking after people ’ s wellbeing and ] you ’ re trying to keep them connected , and making sure that you can enable them to overcome isolation , and find other ways to feel engaged in their communities .
Whiddon has conducted this research two years in a row . What were some of the findings that struck you about the most recent report ? It wasn ’ t exactly the same survey , because there was some new things that we wanted to survey in this last iteration . What was disturbing was that we saw the overall levels of loneliness rise – so people identifying themselves in that plus-65 age category as feeling lonely either some or all of the time had risen to 50 per cent of those surveyed . That compares to around 45 per cent in the survey that we conducted in 2015 . That was a rise of about 17 per cent .
In what other ways does the data in the 2016 report compare to previous findings ? There were some similarities , as you ’ d expect – the importance of being connected to your community , as a way of combating loneliness and social isolation . In this survey , we made the distinction between loneliness and isolation , whereas in the previous survey we just asked about perceptions of loneliness .
So we did get over 40 per cent of that plus-65 population [ saying ] that they felt isolated from their community , which is a very high figure . Some of the key reasons for feeling isolated were reflected across both surveys – things like not knowing enough people in the community , not having enough , or not being able to find information around what services are available in the community . Transport was another key one , and poor health limiting your ability to get out and about .
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