Covid-19 and Older People's Mental Health
Here’s the latest from Practicing Mental Illness:
The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the mental health of older people is surprising.
This year has given me the unique opportunity to reframe my relationship with my parents. I’ve helped my father with his own medical issues, and I’ve enjoyed the development of a closer relationship between my mother and my daughter born through some wonderful technology neither experimented with before the pandemic. This experience has helped us all through some very difficult months and sets us up to continue to do well as the crisis wears on.
Early in the pandemic there was broad concern about how older people would fare given shutdown enforced isolation, loneliness, separation from contact with family members and lack of access to or knowledge of the smart technology necessary to maintain social connections when opportunities for in-person interaction are limited. Many clinicians and family members expected the worse. As it turns out, when it comes to mental health in 2020, older people are doing much better than younger people.
While older people worry a lot about physical and financial threats of the coronavirus, new incidence of mental health problems haven’t bothered them, as a group, as much. This summer, a few months into the pandemic, the CDC found the following:
In August 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a survey, conducted June 24-30, 2020, of 5412 community-dwelling adults across the US, noting that the 933 participants aged 65 years or older reported significantly lower percentages of anxiety disorder (6.2%), depressive disorder (5.8%), or trauma- or stress-related disorder (TSRD) (9.2%) than participants in younger age groups. According to the report, of the 731 participants aged 18 through 24 years, 49.1% reported anxiety disorder; 52.3%, depressive disorder; and 46%, TSRD. Of the 1911 participants aged 25 through 44 years, 35.3% reported anxiety disorder; 32.5%, depressive disorder; and 36% for TSRD. Of the 895 participants aged 45 through 64 years, 16.1% reported anxiety disorder; 14.4%, depressive disorder; and 17.2%, TSRD.
A JAMA Network study published November 20th, Older Adults and the Mental Health Effects of Covid-19, found these findings have lasted well into the Fall, eight months into the limitations enforced as the pandemic restrictions continue.
Of course these are aggregated statistics and individuals will have individual experiences, with some faring very poorly while others thrive. It remains important to forge close connections with older friends and family members and to make sure the technology needed to communicate today is accessible. Also, when safe and possible, in-person visits should be considered. Loneliness can have detrimental repercussions on isolated individuals, and as we come to the holidays and a surge in the virus leads to new and longer restrictions on opportunities for social interaction, such loneliness may change the relatively positive mental health experience most older adults have faced. But once again, as reported in the JAMA network study, researchers have found a surprising coping strategy for loneliness in older people.
With age comes wisdom. Wisdom is developed in most people as they live through various experiences, and wisdom can help a person place a crisis like the one we face right now in perspective. This wisdom becomes a defense against deteriorating mental health. The researchers discovered a strong inverse correlation between wisdom and loneliness, so higher incidence of wisdom as found in older people becomes a significant counter to the negative impact of loneliness. Whereas older people are more likely to find themselves in situations where they are alone, they are better able to handle such loneliness due to their life experiences. Especially important in living with fewer social contacts is the compassion that often comes with wisdom. The more compassion a person feels, the less mental illness they report.
This year, opportunities to express compassion abound. We must be sure to give older people the forum to express this compassion and to reach out and offer the council formed through their sensitivity to the experience of others in order to assist younger people face the challenges forced on us by the pandemic, and to further develop each older person’s resilience. We must also realize that the positive results of these studies come from surveys of community-based adults. Older people living in care facilities require special treatment and opportunities to experience and express their wisdom and compassion, and increased attention and conversation wherever and whenever possible.
As with any crisis we can best come through this together. Also, as with any crisis our elders can show us the way through. To turn to them for guidance will help us, and it will help them.
Mental Illness and Race
There are some surprising discrepancies in diagnoses of mental illness among different racial groups. Socio-economic circumstances and urban challenges may exacerbate these inequities. The impact of fewer opportunities for treatment and fewer resources to pay for treatment perpetuate diverse outcomes and community attitudes toward mental health. I wrote about these issues here.
Meditation
For information and inspiration on practice I often turn to the WCCM, the World Community for Christian Meditation. I began practicing meditation in this tradition. Yet this tradition, is lost to most Christians in the United States. Perhaps this year, with its enforced isolation and, for some of us, increased time for contemplation, more people can discover the roots of silent prayer and the diversity of mindfulness traditions. Here, Vladimir Volrab offers some thoughts and instructions on practice, and encourages us with the provocative idea that during this time when we cannot travel we can begin the most important journey of our lives.
Resilience: Handling Anxiety in a Time of Crisis
I learned this week that the Toronto Public Library has seven copies of my book, and right now two are out on loan! Amazon only has 18 copies left in stock. There’s still a chance to order copies from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or direct from me and get it, or give it, for the holiday season. Thanks and Happy Holidays.