Centre for Policy on Ageing



Loneliness in care homes — a neglected area of research?
Author(s)	Christina R Victor
Journal title	Aging Health, vol 8, no 6, December 2012
Publisher	Future Medicine, December 2012
Pages	pp 637-646
Source	http://www.futuremedicine.com/loi/ahe
Keywords	Care homes ; Residents [care homes] ; Loneliness ; Isolation ; Evaluation.
Annotation	Research has shown that approximately 5% of older people aged 65 years and over in developed countries live in care homes and these represent the frailest and most vulnerable members of this population group. Levels of morbidity, especially dementia and cognitive impairment, are high, making it challenging to conduct research with these groups. Loneliness is a debilitating condition with important negative outcomes in terms of both quality of life and wider health outcomes. The prevalence of severe loneliness among older people living in care homes is at least double that of community-dwelling populations: 22_42% for the care population compared with 10% for the community population. However the evidence base for the care home group is tentative as it is based upon a very limited empirical base of only five studies. This review failed to identify compelling evidence for the effectiveness of interventions to remediate loneliness in care home populations. (JL).
Accession Number	CPA-121214274 A
Classmark	KW: KX: DV: TP: 4C
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing

...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.