Isolated Seniors More Likely to Move Into Nursing Homes: Study

An elderly couple walk through a park in Sydney, Australia, on April 30, 2017. AAP Image/Paul Miller

New research on the relationship between loneliness in seniors and moving into a nursing home showed there is a higher possibility of entering a nursing home for seniors who are more socially isolated.

The paper, published on Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, defined social isolation as “an objective lack of social contact that complicates the ability to age at home or the community.”

Its objective was to evaluate whether higher levels of social isolation are associated with hospitalization and nursing home placement among a nationally representative sample of community-dwelling older adults in the United States.

The researchers adjusted the findings for key health and social characteristics, including loneliness and depressive symptoms.

The research found that over two years, seniors who reported higher scores of social isolation were 0.5 to 3 percent more likely to be placed in a nursing home.

They found no link between social isolation and hospitalization.

The research did not find whether these two years can be expanded linearly together with the increase in nursing home placement possibility.

How social isolation is measured differs for each research project. In this most recent paper, social isolation was measured with a multidomain six-item scale, rated from zero to six, where a higher score indicates greater isolation.

The participants were 65 years old or older, 11,517 in number, male and female, and mostly white (90 percent), and were interviewed between 2006 and 2018.

Approximately 15 percent of the participants experienced social isolation.

According to the researchers, “social isolation is of particular concern for older adults, who often experience bereavement or kinlessness or live alone despite needing additional support to manage complex health conditions.”

Previous studies cited in the research paper have linked social isolation with mental and cognitive decline, functional limitations, diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and a 30 percent increase in mortality risk.

The paper concludes by saying that social isolation was a significant risk factor for nursing home use among older adults.

“Efforts to deter or delay nursing home entry should seek to enhance social contact at home or in community settings.”

This social contact has the potential to “improve their health trajectories and outcomes.”

Risk of Dementia

Another study has found that chronic loneliness and social isolation can increase the risk of developing dementia. To counter this, it is recommended that older adults prevent dementia by learning and staying curious to stimulate their brains.

The global population is experiencing an increase in life expectancy. In 2021, there were 761 million people over the age of 65 worldwide, and this figure is predicted to reach 1.6 billion by 2050.

However, a report published by the World Health Organization in 2021 indicates that dementia is becoming a primary concern for older adults. The report states that 55 million people—8.1 percent of women and 5.4 percent of men over 65—currently have dementia.

Another recent study by Johns Hopkins University, published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, tracked 5,022 adults aged 65 and older for nine years. The study found that out of 5,022 older adults, 1,172 (23.3 percent) reported being socially isolated, and 3,850 (76.7 percent) didn’t.

After adjusting for demographic and health factors, individuals who were socially isolated had a 28 percent higher risk of developing dementia over a period of nine years than those who weren’t.

Loneliness in Numbers

Social isolation is also related to the family status of senior people and to their decisions and mindset toward relationships and marriage at a younger age.

The Pew Research Center found that in 2019, roughly 4 in 10 adults ages 25 to 54 were unpartnered, or about 38 percent. This share was 29 percent in 1990.

In a June report from the Pew Research Center, researchers found that in 2021, 25 percent of 40-year-olds in the United States had never been married, or 1 in 4. This was a significant increase from 20 percent in 2010, according to an analysis of date from the U.S. Census Bureau.

This share was 10 percent in 1950 and 6 percent in 1980, from which point on it started to increase steadily, reaching 25 percent in 2021.

In other words, people born after 1960 have been increasingly delaying marriage or forgoing it altogether.

Also, most of the unmarried 40-year-olds are not living with a romantic partner.

In 2022, 22 percent of never-married adults ages 40 to 44 were cohabiting. This means that almost 80 percent of this age group were living alone. This translates to 20 percent for this age group as a whole, regardless of marital status.

Furthermore, black people were much more likely to have never been married, accounting for 46 percent of the group in the study, compared to 20 percent for white people and 27 percent for Hispanic people.

Education level was also a significant factor, with people having a high school diploma or less being more likely to have never been married (33 percent), compared with 18 percent for 40-year-olds with a bachelor’s degree or more advanced education.