A shared universe › Blog › Supporting an older person who lives alone · Español
According to Spain’s National Statistics Institute, in 2020 more than two million people aged 65 or over were living alone in Spain, and seven in ten were women. Behind that figure there is a mother who has her supper with the radio on, a neighbour on the third floor who rarely goes out, an aunt who waits for the Sunday call.
Many older people live alone because they want to, and are fine that way: they have their home, their routines and their independence, and wouldn’t swap them. Others live alone because life has left them that way, after being widowed or when their children moved far away, and they miss company they no longer have. The first is a way of living. The second is unwanted loneliness.
In 2021 the World Health Organization published a report on this subject. According to the studies it collects, between 20% and 34% of older people in China, India, the United States, Europe and Latin America feel lonely. The WHO links isolation and loneliness in old age with more heart disease, stroke, depression and memory decline.
That is why supporting someone is not about keeping watch or filling their diary. It is about being close in a way that works for that person.
The psychologist Laura Carstensen, of Stanford University, has studied how relationships change with age. Her socioemotional selectivity theory explains that, when we feel the time we have left is shorter, we give priority to what has the most emotional meaning. In her studies, older people had fewer acquaintances than younger ones, but kept a similar number of close people.
In other words, the circle gets smaller, and not always through loss: often it is a choice. The consequence for the person who keeps company is clear. If you are one of the few people who count for them, your call is worth far more than it seems.
No big plans are needed. What most often helps is regularity, because it gives them something to look forward to:
In the early 1960s, the American psychiatrist Robert Butler described what he called life review. He observed that many older people go back over their past spontaneously, and argued that it is not a quirk or a sign of decline, as was thought at the time, but something normal that helps to put what has been lived in order and to find meaning in it.
When your father tells again how he came to the city, or your neighbour repeats the story of her first job, that is what they are doing. Listening properly, without correcting and without hurrying, is one of the most valuable ways of keeping someone company. What is said in really listening may help.
Butler was also the one who coined, in 1969, the word “ageism”: prejudice and unequal treatment on grounds of age. One of the most common creeps unintentionally into the way we speak.
The nurse and researcher Kristine Williams, of the University of Kansas, published a study in 2009 using recordings of conversations between care home staff and older people with dementia. When they were spoken to with diminutives, terms of endearment such as “sweetie”, plurals like “let’s take our tablet now” and a childish tone, the likelihood of their refusing care was 55%. When they were spoken to normally, adult to adult, it was 26%.
Outside a care home, the lesson is the same. Ask for their opinion, let them decide what is theirs to decide, don’t talk about them in front of them as if they weren’t there and don’t solve what they can solve. How we talk about age counts too: the psychologist Becca Levy, of Yale University, followed 660 people in Ohio for more than twenty years and saw that those with a more positive view of their own ageing lived on average seven and a half years longer. It is an association, not proof of cause, but it is a reason not to talk about old age only as loss.
Without turning every visit into an inspection, there are things worth noticing:
If you see anything like this, talk to them calmly and, if they agree, with their GP. The local council’s social services can tell you about telecare alarms, home help and day centres. If at any point they tell you they don’t want to go on living, take it seriously and ask for help straight away. In Spain you can talk to a person at the Teléfono de la Esperanza, 717 003 717, at any time. If you are thinking of ending your life, call 024: it is free and answered 24 hours a day. If you are in another country, call your local emergency number or a helpline there.
Some weeks you can’t visit as often as you would like. On those days there is room for a small gesture: lighting a “For someone” star in A shared universe with that mother, uncle or neighbour in mind, and saying in 280 characters what worries you or what you hope for them.