Elders Struggle to Find Support Post Pandemic

By Estelle Jarrett
UConn Journalism 
March 1, 2023

Green­wich – Scared on a Sat­ur­day night, Arlene Gar­den­er called the Green­wich Police Sta­tion say­ing she was alone and could not move from her spot. She did not know how to turn the gen­er­a­tor on, as the elec­tric­i­ty would be out in her area for days at a time.

“They said, ‘Ma’am, we can’t help if there’s no emer­gency. You know, things like that make you feel incon­ve­nient. Incon­se­quen­tial,” shared Gardener.

Gar­den­er is one of many seniors who strug­gled to adjust to the lack of sup­port the pan­dem­ic lock­downs high­light­ed for the demo­graph­ic. In a 2021 study by Boston Med­ical Cen­ter, data has shown that low lev­els of senior com­mu­ni­ty par­tic­i­pa­tion have been linked to increased mor­tal­i­ty and social iso­la­tion due to the pan­dem­ic. A society’s pop­u­la­tion won’t age health­ily if old folks remain seden­tary in their homes instead of com­mu­ni­ties con­sid­er­ing the accom­mo­da­tions nec­es­sary to trans­port peo­ple to pub­lic spaces.

In Green­wich, the pop­u­la­tion is 62,000 with 25 per­cent of the town’s res­i­dents being 60 or old­er, accord­ing to the 2020 U.S. Cen­sus. This num­ber is only ris­ing as Baby Boomers enter the age brack­et and munic­i­pal lead­ers are left to deal with con­di­tions unfit for the elder­ly, which have been neglect­ed thus far, accord­ing to Tatiana Flow­ers of Green­wich Time in Sep­tem­ber 2021.

Car­o­line Lemon, a nurse at Boston Med­ical Cen­ter, shed light on how the elder­ly are at risk of men­tal and phys­i­cal injury if they do not receive the sup­port they need.

“In gen­er­al, the peo­ple with demen­tia, Alzheimer’s, or who don’t have fam­i­ly sup­port will decline faster. This feel­ing of neglect is bad for any­one, but the elder­ly are also immo­bile,” Lemon said.

Trans­porta­tion is often inac­ces­si­ble or inad­e­quate for dis­abled indi­vid­u­als, accord­ing to the Nation­al Coun­cil on Aging. Avail­able tran­sit becomes cru­cial for those who have lost their abil­i­ty to dri­ve as they age.

Gar­den­er her­self has hip and mem­o­ry prob­lems that keep her from trav­el­ing and she relies heav­i­ly on neigh­bors and com­mu­ni­ty agencies. 

“You know, they’re like fam­i­ly. My daugh­ters live so far away, but my neigh­bor’s daugh­ters help me so much in self­less ges­tures con­stant­ly,” said Gardener.

The chang­ing fam­i­ly dynam­ic trends in the U.S. are not to be under­es­ti­mat­ed as nation­al birth rates have plum­met­ed. The baby boomer gen­er­a­tion are becom­ing seniors and the num­ber of adults who nev­er mar­ried is at an all-time high, accord­ing to the most recent U.S. Cen­sus. This is impor­tant because the lack of social ties with­in a fam­i­ly unit means less inter­gen­er­a­tional care­giv­ing. All of this leads to a greater reliance on com­mu­ni­ty help.

Anoth­er demo­graph­ic that suf­fers from not hav­ing chil­dren to care for them in their old age are those old folks who are part of the LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ty. Accord­ing to an orga­ni­za­tion that advo­cates for LGBTQ+ elders called SAGE, LGBTQ+ seniors are more com­mon­ly sin­gle or estranged from their bio­log­i­cal fam­i­lies, mak­ing their sup­port sys­tem minimized.

Such com­mu­ni­ty-based care exists in Con­necti­cut. These com­mu­ni­ty ser­vices include vis­it­ing nurs­es, home­mak­ers, meals on wheels, and respite care. Dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, orga­ni­za­tions in town had become more con­nect­ed as they need­ed to share names and ser­vices to get by. 

Meals on Wheels, Fill­ing in the Blanks at Nor­walk, and Neigh­bor to Neigh­bor are part­nered with each oth­er to pro­vide help where it’s need­ed. Neigh­bor to Neigh­bor gives fresh fruit to Meals on Wheels, and Meals on Wheels gives food to Fill­ing in the Blanks on weekends.

At Meals on Wheels of Green­wich, Direc­tor of Oper­a­tions Lynne Stew­art explained that they’d had a 20 per­cent increase in their client base since the pan­dem­ic and explained that the oper­a­tion had relied heav­i­ly on vol­un­teers when old­er dri­vers were sus­cep­ti­ble to the virus. Stew­art described the neces­si­ty for find­ing more good-heart­ed work­ers as the deliv­ery relies heav­i­ly on social­iza­tion for folks who most like­ly live alone, as well as a big chunk of their clients being disabled.

Also due to the pan­dem­ic, dri­vers don’t stop to have long chats over a cup of cof­fee like they used to, said Stew­art. Instead, they would call up their clients on the phone to have a friend­ly chat. Stew­art acknowl­edges that the major­i­ty of their client base are lone­ly indi­vid­u­als who appre­ci­ate the extra effort. 

Nowa­days, dri­vers still don’t linger with their deliv­er­ies, but if dri­vers have kids com­ing home from col­lege or a new pup­py, Stew­art encour­ages them to bring them along for the ride.

“It’s a short inter­ac­tion, yes, but that’s more rea­son for our work­ers to radi­ate kind­ness no mat­ter what mood our clients are in that day.”

Clients with demen­tia, mem­o­ry prob­lems and hear­ing prob­lems are dif­fi­cult, accord­ing to Stew­art, since there could be con­fu­sion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion issues between the Meals on Wheels work­er and the client, but they learn which client has these con­di­tions and adjust accord­ing­ly. Stew­art is in close com­mu­ni­ca­tion with her dri­vers and asks them to report back to her if there seems to be any issues.

“If Mrs. Smith has bruis­es, they chat her up for a minute to see if it’s a 911 sit­u­a­tion. Then I call the grand­daugh­ter who lives in Iowa to make sure she is aware that grand­ma has a cough or bruis­es. What­ev­er it is,” explained Stewart.

Towns like Green­wich have a high per­cent­age of folks with­out fam­i­ly in the state since, socioe­co­nom­i­cal­ly, it is too expen­sive for many fam­i­ly mem­bers to live in the same places their elders have.

For seden­tary elder­ly folks, fam­i­ly vis­its are the link to the out­side world. Dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, some ser­vices and pro­grams were no longer avail­able, leav­ing peo­ple like Gar­den­er to rely on 911 and have neigh­bors help with food orders via a gro­cery list. The major­i­ty of old­er adults are already at increased risk of stress, anx­i­ety, and depres­sion, but this intense dis­con­nect from the out­side world with­out the means of social­iza­tion is what has grown, accord­ing to the Nation­al Insti­tute on Aging.

“I don’t want to go to a senior retire­ment cen­ter in the area because I do believe I’d age faster. I like being alone, I just don’t like being lone­ly,” Gar­den­er explained.

This stig­ma against retire­ment homes is a com­mon one, espe­cial­ly in afflu­ent areas like Green­wich, where folks over 65 can afford the liv­ing wages. For Gar­den­er, it would be a big­ger com­mu­ni­ty, yes, but all she need­ed was for some of her fam­i­ly mem­bers to care and for her neigh­bors to be recep­tive, and she could get by.

Car­ol Lara, anoth­er res­i­dent in the Green­wich area, lives with her daugh­ter, who watch­es atten­tive­ly over her 91 year old moth­er. The fam­i­ly has set up a baby mon­i­tor in Lara’s liv­ing quar­ters called iBa­by Mon­i­tor M7. Lara loves her alone time, so this was a way the fam­i­ly com­pro­mised to make sure they could keep an eye on their matri­arch, who had just been in the hos­pi­tal for many weeks. 

“We got this advice from one of the many vis­it­ing nurs­es that come here to help me. They help my daugh­ter Mol­ly han­dle the respon­si­bil­i­ties of show­er­ing me, help­ing me go to the bath­room, and watch­ing my soap operas,” said Lara.

Gar­den­er does not have the lux­u­ry of liv­ing with some­one after the pass­ing of her hus­band in 2019; how­ev­er, she main­tains the idea that she will be alright as long as some­one cares.

“You have to main­tain a sense of humor in every­thing you do. I talk to my cat, you know: ‘Do you know what hap­pened to me today?’ and I stay sane. At the end of the day, we’re all in the same boat, and the boat is not in great shape.”