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domingo, 8 de marzo de 2020

BioEdge: Will loneliness become a major health problem as countries age?

BioEdge: Will loneliness become a major health problem as countries age?

Bioedge

Will loneliness become a major health problem as countries age?

by Michael Cook | 7 Mar 2020 |

Every general practitioner has lonely elderly patients whose check-ups double as social events. They have few other occasions for interacting with people. Why not enlist the healthcare system in identifying people who are at highest risk for social isolation or loneliness?

According to a major report from the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, “strong evidence suggests that, for older adults, social isolation and loneliness are associated with an increased likelihood of early death, dementia, heart disease, and more”.

The report attracted the attention of The Lancet, which commented in an editorial:

“The recognition of social isolation and loneliness as a public health problem is welcome. But how can we address such a complex, multifaceted issue on a wider scale? The factors contributing to loneliness are often deeply personal and unique for each individual. A personalised approach that aims to understand and address the root cause of each individual's loneliness will therefore be crucial.”

It may be, however, that solving the problem is very different from identifying it and analysing it. The report speaks of “a vast number of people who are socially isolated or lonely”.

That number is bound to rise. As the report points out, “Increasingly couples—both unmarried and married—are not having children; in 2018 the number of births in the United States reached its lowest level in 32 years. The effect of these demographic dynamics on the rates of social isolation and loneliness among future generations of older adults is unknown.”

Although it may be unknown, it can hardly be positive. Along with a tsunami of elderly, societies may also have to deal with a tsunami of unhealthy loneliness.

Michael Cook is the editor of BioEdge

Milan is in the grip of an epidemic. Towns have been quarantined. Public gatherings have been cancelled. The streets are empty. Incompetent public officials are trying to dampen mounting hysteria. Dark rumours are circulating. Hospital wards are overflowing.

The coronavirus?

No, the Great Plague of 1630 in which perhaps a million (1,000,000) people died. About two hundred and fifty (250) have died so far in Italy’s coronavirus outbreak. That figure alone should immunise you against nostalgia for the Good Old Days. The panic and suffering of the citizens of Milan during the bubonic plague -- who also had to cope with a drought, a famine and the Thirty Years’ War -- make coronavirus seem like a Sunday summer picnic.

There’s a dearth of good news about the panic, illness, death and economic disruption of the world’s coronavirus epidemic. The only positive I can think of is that it may send people back to the Great Italian Novel, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed), which was published by Alessandro Manzoni in 1827. The climax of its complicated plot is a vivid description of the Great Plague.

If you want to be thankful for dodging a bullet by being born 400 years later than the events he described, dive into Chapters 31, 32 and 33. There are a number of instructive parallels with current events.