Neglected facet of ageing: emotional and social well being of elderly

Just like any other phase of one’s life requiring emotional support and social interactions, what the elderly also need are compassion, attention, empathy, and dignity. The growing age comes with its own set of challenges presented in the form of declining bodily functions, heightened chances of developing chronic diseases and increased susceptibility to serious mental health problems, necessitating the elderly to have a support pillar to ensure their health and wellbeing.

The elderly phase of life is often considered sensitive as individuals go through numerous changes in their own body and have to deal with the social changes. The entire process of coming to terms with the fact that you have shrinking social interactions as you age due to your condition or due to neglect from friends and families is challenging and can take a tremendous toll on the mental wellbeing of the elderly. However, today’s sad and harsh reality is that most aged people lack the accessibility to necessities of life or sometimes even familial support to cater to their overall emotional and social health, which is often not registered as necessary for the aged populace. 

Thus, while the need to be embedded in a social group and the necessity of being emotionally healthy doesn’t change as one age, despite that, this prerequisite for living a happy life is still often compromised with ageing. A better understanding of the issue at hand and awareness is required to combat this issue and provide the kind of assistance and resources the elderly deserve to maintain social interaction and mental peace. Some changes at the community level and even on an individualistic level, including our outlook towards ageing, need to be in place to make this feasible.

Exploitation and abuse of elders

The first step to promote the emotional health of the elderly is understanding the reality of how the aged are treated and often neglected due to their vulnerability. These issues collectively constitute and influence the much larger issue of the quality of living of the elderly and their emotional and social health.

Numerous headlines and news reports showcase how elderly adults are disregarded, abused and tortured, taken advantage of financially by their own family members. The people who should be taking care of them are the ones who end up harming them physically as well as emotionally. Losing familial support and being treated as an outcast by your own family makes it even harder for the seniors to trust anybody, leaving them searching for resources that can help them, often presenting a bleak picture of the future. It is heart-wrenching to witness such incidents, but there is not much intervention observed from society or individuals as this is deemed an inside matter of the families. 

Most of the aged people are not physically strong enough to fight back against the abuse. Elder neglect is also one of the prominent types of elder abuse. In this type of abuse, caretakers or family members tend to ignore the older people intentionally and fail to cater to his/her needs. Caregivers who take up the responsibility of providing aid and care to older people in many cases have been proven guilty of not giving food, health care services, assistance for daily living, and other services needed for sustenance to the seniors. The issue runs very deep in our society, shrouded in the veil of ignorance or the sheer disregard that we as a community have towards bringing some qualitative changes in the health scenario of the elderly. However, that can be changed by creating dialogues regarding this topic, creating resources that the aged can turn to for help, whether in the form of assisted living homes with standard protocols or inclusion of specific policies that target such cases of abuse. 

Social wellbeing of aged people

Another side of the coin when it comes to the overall well being of the elderly is their social health. In some ways or another, there is a correlation between emotional and social well being, as issues like depression and anxiety can push seniors to isolate themselves from outside contact or lose the will to interact with anyone. There could be two cases wherein an older person starts detaching from their community, social group, and the outside stimuli – out of their own accord and disinterest or isolation enforced by their abuser to keep them from getting the needed help. With more awareness around this parameter of elderly living, there has been a shift in the approach people have towards elderly concentrated communities like senior care homes and other assisted living homes catering to specific conditions of the elderly. Moreover, retirement homes meant for only the aged to live in are also slowly & steadily becoming mainstream.  

Maintaining emotional & social wellbeing of elderly

Extra support and care can allow the elderly to maintain a quality living and a good state of emotional and social well being. To achieve this, the caregiver or the family members of the aged person needs to ensure that they are getting regular medical assistance when required and needed. 

1) Acknowledging the need for the elderly to be physically active and ensuring that with some sort of guidance and assistance. The people living with them should be able to make them indulge in physical activities, and their diet should contain all the vital vitamins and minerals.

2) Participation in community events, irrespective of whether they live in an assisted living home, alone or with their family members, is one crucial aspect that needs to be ascertained. 

3) Giving them attention, listening to their concerns, paying heed to what they say and not shrugging their participation in household matters or significant life matters of their own shall be something that needs to be incorporated in how we interact with the elderly. 

4) Seeking expert consultation in case of visible signs of declining health should be ensured to avoid the cascading repercussions on the emotional or mental health of the elderly. 

Conclusion

Having witnessed the happenings in the senior care space through an experience that spans half a decade, Senior Care Genie which is one of the best elder care services in Delhi understands the concerns, inhibitions and difficulties of the elderly and families. From the very beginning, it has been our objective to empower families with the proper support ranging from consultation and transition to at-home care to make the process easier for them and create the reality of better living for the elderly possible.