SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — Older adults across Utah face growing risks of isolation and loneliness, a challenge experts say can have serious impacts on both mental and physical health.
Getting old can sometimes be hard to handle. Things like health issues, dementia, even losing your friends to age related death.
James Brown, the Executive Director of “Living with Pride” has been helping seniors navigate the pitfalls of aging for years. He is 81 years old, so he knows about the challenges that we all face as we age and he says one of the biggest problems is “loneliness.”
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Older adults across Utah face growing risks of isolation and loneliness, a challenge experts say can have serious impacts on both mental and physical health. (KUTV)
James talked about the problem at the “Promise to Live” town hall meeting in Lehi last week.
He also offered some important insights about isolation and loneliness.
What you find with older adults is many of their friends and long-term relationships go away, he said. We don’t talk to seniors like we used to when you and I were growing up, you know, we just look at them and go, Grandma, grandpa, go sit on the couch or go retire and that’s not what they need. They need to have some continual involvement with people because their life is all about that fourth quarter and they get lonely.
KUTV asked James about what we can all do to make our seniors feel wanted and happy? He says, engage them, get them involved in the community. Many seniors can still work. You need to do more than just pat them on the back and say, How you doing today?
Take them out. Let them get involved in the community and you’d be surprised at the wealth of knowledge and wisdom that older adults have because they’ve seen this country. They’ve seen the state, this city as it has progressed and the changes they have lived through and the accomplishments they have made during their lifetime.
He also says sitting alone and living a sedentary lifestyle isn’t good for anybody, “Hey, let me tell you something, when we were in elementary and junior high, they said you got to do your exercises.
There’s something serious about that. If you don’t move the body, you don’t move the mind, do guess what happens? It’s like a car.. If You don’t put any gas in it, if you don’t put any oil in it, it won’t run and that goes for the body too, that’s what the body isjust go to a senior center and you might see two or three seniors together…But when you see them alone, that says something.
These are people who have grown up with a lot of people in their lives and now you see them walking the streets or in the library by themselves. Just go over and say hello…The greatest thing you can do for seniors is say “HI” and that will get the ball rolling.
James has a website called “Living with Pride.org”. it’s a clearing house for all things related to senior care and senior living. A perfect topic for this month’s Eye on Mental Health. Reach out to James if you need help caring for a senior or if you are a senior yourself and need help with any issue.
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