Loneliness in Aging Adults: A Narrative Review

Abstract

The recent literature on loneliness in aging adults (last five years) is predominantly focused on negative effects of being lonely along with some studies on risk factors, buffers, and inter-ventions. Aging is typically defined as ages starting at 60 or 65. The prevalence rates for loneliness in aging adults were highly variable in this literature, ranging from a low of 11% in Norway to a high of 76% in San Diego. Negative effects have included age-ism attitudes, anxiety, depression, memory loss, low heart rate variability, short telomere length, frailty, frequent falls and trips to the emergency room. Risk factors have included aging anxiety, sensory loss, neuroticism, losing a partner, and COVID-19. Buf-fers/protective factors have included being in a relationship, con-tinued working, internet use and being with pets and robots. And personality traits have been protective including agreeableness, wisdom, and narcissism. Interventions have included social net-working, personal voice assistants, writing and laughter therapy. Although the recent research suggests that loneliness and aging are related on some variables like frailty, it has not suggested that loneliness is more prevalent among the aging than younger adults. In addition, most of the data are based on self-report sur-veys that have yielded mixed results across countries.