Loneliness in older adults poses severe health risks. Here’s how the town of Mansfield is trying to combat it.

By George Velky
Newswrit­ing II
April 2024

MANSFIELD – Rec­og­niz­ing that lone­li­ness and iso­la­tion among old­er adults increase the risks of men­tal and phys­i­cal health prob­lems, the town is work­ing to pro­vide those at risk with oppor­tu­ni­ties for mean­ing­ful social con­nec­tions. 

“Lone­li­ness is tox­ic to the body,” said Dr. Kristi­na Zdanys, asso­ciate pro­fes­sor of psy­chi­a­try and head of the geri­atric psy­chi­a­try and the behav­ioral health divi­sion at UConn Heath. 

Old­er adults who expe­ri­ence lone­li­ness are at a high­er risk of dying from all caus­es. “There is a sim­i­lar risk of death to smok­ing… 15 cig­a­rettes a day,” Zdanys said. 

Rough­ly 24% of Amer­i­cans ages 65 and old­er are con­sid­ered to be social­ly iso­lat­ed and over 40% of adults ages 60 and old­er report feel­ing lone­ly, accord­ing to a study by the Nation­al Acad­e­mies of Sci­ences, Engi­neer­ing, and Med­i­cine. 

The study found that there was a rough­ly 50% increased risk of devel­op­ing demen­tia as a result of social iso­la­tion, as well as a 25% increased risk for can­cer. 

Risk of coro­nary heart dis­ease increased 29% and the risk of stroke increased by 32% due to old­er peo­ple hav­ing poor social rela­tion­ships, the study said.

[info­gram id=“increased-risks-caused-by-loneliness-and-isolation-1h984wvony1jd2p?live”]

Data from the Nation­al Acad­e­mies. / graph­ic by George Velky

Social iso­la­tion is dif­fer­ent from lone­li­ness. Iso­la­tion is the objec­tive state of being along. Lone­li­ness is  the sub­jec­tive feel­ing of being iso­lat­ed, accord­ing to the study.

Social iso­la­tion can come in many forms. Some­one might be liv­ing in a com­mu­ni­ty alone, liv­ing alone in assist­ed liv­ing or in a skilled nurs­ing facil­i­ty where their fam­i­ly isn’t vis­it­ing them, accord­ing to Zdanys. 

Mem­bers of the old­er pop­u­la­tion face high­er lev­els of social iso­la­tion and lone­li­ness because of cir­cum­stances such as loss of friends and fam­i­ly and liv­ing alone, the Nation­al Acad­e­mies found. Anoth­er issue is iso­la­tion due to lack of trans­porta­tion.

“Loss is going to have huge impacts on their well being,” said Aman­da Coop­er, a pro­fes­sor at UConn with doc­tor­ate in com­mu­ni­ca­tion and exper­tise in com­mu­ni­ca­tion and aging.  

Loss of a part­ner takes a sig­nif­i­cant toll on men­tal health because a rela­tion­al part­ner is usu­al­ly the core social sup­port provider, Coop­er said.  

Con­trary to what one might think, though old­er adults were not as severe­ly affect­ed by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic as oth­er age demo­graph­ics. Zdanys attrib­uted the old­er population’s abil­i­ty to han­dle the pan­dem­ic to their abil­i­ty to fight through dif­fi­cult times. 

“I think old­er adults have the ben­e­fits of resilience,” said Zdanys. “Some­times peo­ple see resilience as an inher­ent trait, but resilience is actu­al­ly some­thing that can be cul­ti­vat­ed and acquired through the process of grow­ing old­er and being forced to over­come chal­lenges.” 

Coop­er agreed that mem­bers of this pop­u­la­tion can deal with issues.

“Old­er adults have to be phe­nom­e­nal­ly resilient, they’ve made it that far, right,” said Coop­er. She dis­cussed research around how peo­ple build resilience for the future and how they use dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tions in their past and apply them to dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tions in their future.

Because most of the old­er pop­u­la­tion has reg­u­lar inter­ac­tion with the health care sys­tem, the Nation­al Acad­e­mies said that the sys­tem must increase its role in rec­og­niz­ing when peo­ple are suf­fer­ing from a lack of social con­nec­tions, and pro­vide them with the resources to reduce iso­la­tion and lone­li­ness. 

UConn Health has cre­at­ed a few ini­tia­tives to pro­vide resources and increase its care. 

One pro­gram is a sup­port group for old­er adults that are care­givers for some­one with demen­tia. Care­giv­ing for spous­es, friends or close rel­a­tives is a 24/7 respon­si­bil­i­ty and it absorbs a caregiver’s entire life. “That is going to large­ly impact their abil­i­ty to go out and be social, when they could if they didn’t have that care­giv­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty,” Zdanys said. 

This pro­gram meets once a month, accord­ing to Zdanys. It gives care­givers an oppor­tu­ni­ty to inter­act and prob­lem solve with oth­ers in sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tions. 

Anoth­er pro­gram that UConn Health is start­ing is one where med­ical stu­dents will move into a facil­i­ty for a week and expe­ri­ence what life is like there. Med­ical stu­dents are able to pro­vide some extra social stim­u­la­tion to the peo­ple who live there dur­ing their stay, accord­ing to Zdanys. The stu­dents are also able to devel­op empa­thy for old­er adults, and gain insight into the impacts of social iso­la­tion and lone­li­ness. With this knowl­edge, these stu­dents will be more keen on these issues and how to help at-risk old­er adults through­out their careers. 

 There is also a cor­re­la­tion between social inter­ac­tion and men­tal health. 

Social iso­la­tion and lone­li­ness can lead to anx­i­ety and depres­sion, accord­ing to the Nation­al Insti­tute on Aging. The Nation­al Acad­e­mies also found that social iso­la­tion leads to high­er sui­ci­dal inten­tion. 

“The high­est rate of sui­cide is among old­er when men, over the age of 75,” said Zdanys. When you com­bine that sta­tis­tic with the aspects of iso­la­tion and lone­li­ness, that demo­graph­ic is at risk at a con­cern­ing lev­el. 

How­ev­er, hav­ing social con­nec­tions at a qual­i­ty lev­el can “improve pos­i­tive men­tal health, life sat­is­fac­tion and qual­i­ty of life,” accord­ing to the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion.. 

“Peo­ple who don’t have base­line cog­ni­tive prob­lems, who are social­ly engaged, may be less like­ly to devel­op demen­tias like Alzheimer’s dis­ease,” said Zdanys. “Cog­ni­tive­ly, it’s cru­cial that peo­ple have social engage­ment.”

Hav­ing strong social con­nec­tions is more impor­tant than hav­ing many social con­nec­tions for old­er adults, accord­ing to Coop­er. She said, “When it comes to lone­li­ness in old­er adult­hood, it’s the qual­i­ty of your con­nec­tions that mat­ter the most.” 

The town of Mans­field has tak­en many steps to pro­vide old­er adults in the com­mu­ni­ty with oppor­tu­ni­ties for social engage­ments. 

Dozens of class­es, out­ings, and ser­vices are pro­vid­ed by the Mans­field Senior Cen­ter to help increase social con­nec­tions among the old­er pop­u­la­tion. The cen­ter pro­vides enter­tain­ment ser­vices includ­ing cre­ative arts groups, life­long learn­ing groups, game nights, movie nights, TED talks, fit­ness class­es, region­al out­ings and more.

Human ser­vices and well being resources such as hair­cuts, a hear­ing clin­ic, emer­gency finan­cial assis­tance, emer­gency food assis­tance and more are offered. 

Trans­porta­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties are also pro­vid­ed. The cen­ter offers shop­ping and errand rides every Tues­day, as well as ride requests to book trans­porta­tion for med­ical appoint­ments, accord­ing to the Mans­field Senior Sparks Newslet­ter. 

The most pop­u­lar activ­i­ties are “def­i­nite­ly any­thing revolv­ing around food,” said Jes­si­ca Tra­cy, senior cen­ter super­vi­sor of the Mans­field Senior Cen­ter. She said that bin­go was also very pop­u­lar and on days that hair­cuts are offered, the cen­ter is crowd­ed through­out the day.  

Tra­cy report­ed sol­id par­tic­i­pa­tion by old­er adults at the senior cen­ter. They usu­al­ly get around “75 peo­ple just for lunch alone,” she said. But “prob­a­bly well over 100 on some of those days.” 

Tra­cy has been work­ing with the town for over 16 years, but just start­ed at the senior cen­ter in Feb­ru­ary 2024. 

She has goals toward how she can improve the cen­ter. “Eval­u­at­ing the pro­grams and see­ing how we can make them bet­ter or more effec­tive and effi­cient is a pri­or­i­ty,” said Tra­cy. “Is there a bet­ter day? Is there a bet­ter time? Would there be a bet­ter instruc­tor or bet­ter for­mat?”

Most of the mar­ket­ing for the senior cen­ter is on the Mans­field town web­site, accord­ing to Tra­cy. The cen­ter uses Face­book for social media infor­ma­tion but she attrib­uted a lack of  posts right now to staffing issues.  

A month­ly newslet­ter is pro­vid­ed by the senior cen­ter called the Mans­field Senior Sparks Newslet­ter. This doc­u­ment high­lights every pro­gram and activ­i­ty offered by the cen­ter through­out the month. There is a cal­en­dar pro­vid­ed as well, which pro­vides the dates of the ser­vices. 

Oth­er work being done to pro­vide oppor­tu­ni­ty for old­er adults to avoid iso­la­tion in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the hous­ing areas in Mans­field to increase aware­ness of pro­grams and ser­vices. Tra­cy said the cen­ter works with Juniper Hill Vil­lage, Rolling Hills, and Glen Ridge own­er­ship to make sure the com­mu­ni­ties have the senior cen­ter newslet­ters. 

It is rel­a­tive­ly inex­pen­sive for mem­bers to get social engage­ments and avoid iso­la­tion and lone­li­ness. 

Tra­cy said that the cen­ter receives a sub­sidy from the town that helps off­set costs for some of the pro­grams. Lunch is about $5 a day and some oth­er pro­grams are slight­ly more expen­sive, accord­ing to Tra­cy. “Lunch three times a week and maybe two oth­er pro­grams, that’s maybe $30,” Tra­cy said. 

Tra­cy is also a mem­ber of the Mans­field Com­mis­sion on Aging. This group, along­side the town of Mans­field and its plan­ning and zon­ing com­mis­sion, have been per­form­ing a facil­i­ties study.

The study is look­ing at 13 build­ings with­in the town to see where the biggest needs are in the future, accord­ing to Tra­cy. “This build­ing here, it def­i­nite­ly has some chal­lenges. It is an old­er build­ing and we do at times reach capac­i­ty,” Tra­cy said in ref­er­ence to the senior cen­ter. 

She explained that when the cen­ter is at capac­i­ty, park­ing is inad­e­quate. She said the loca­tion is opti­mal and that the com­mis­sion is “look­ing at what they want to see in either a new or ren­o­vat­ed facil­i­ty.”

Tra­cy said that the bud­get for the upcom­ing year is get­ting to a point where hope­ful­ly there is mon­ey for design­ing a plan and mov­ing for­ward. When asked about a time­line, Tra­cy said, “I don’t real­ly have an answer for that. That’s part of the chal­lenge, that real­ly nobody does.”