"The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved." Mother Teresa
Older people are especially vulnerable to loneliness and social isolation. As a result, it can have a serious effect on health. 90-year-old Derek Taylor knows the feeling of loneliness all too well after his partner and sister passed away. He was faced with the prospect of no-one to talk to and had no company to share his heartbreaking feelings with. However, instead of allowing his loneliness to get the best of him, he decided to do something about it.
In a BBC interview, Derek Taylor said "the older you get, the less people seem to contact you." Sadly, Taylor isn't alone in experiencing loneliness at a later stage. According to Age UK statistics only 35% of people over the age of 65 spend time with friends most or every day. But 12% never do. 9% of people over the age of 65 say they feel cut off entirely from society. This equates to around 5 million people in the UK.
The same can also be said for people in the U.S. with studies indicating that more than half of Americans have no one with whom they can share their troubles and joy with. Research about the health effects of social isolation shows that older adults without adequate social interaction were twice as likely to die prematurely. In fact, the increased mortality risk is comparable to that from smoking.
So, to combat his feelings of loneliness, Derek Taylor tried a different approach. Rather than waiting for the phone to ring or people to walk into his life, Derek decided to become more active. Take a look:
