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A Public Health Analysis of the Relationship Between Loneliness, Isolation, and Dementia

Loneliness and isolation are now characterised as major public health problems largely because of reported associations with negative health outcomes including dementia. We adopt a public health perspective and review the relationship between loneliness/isolation and dementia focussing on how these...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Victor, Christina
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Oxford University Press 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8969836/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igab046.918
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author Victor, Christina
author_facet Victor, Christina
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description Loneliness and isolation are now characterised as major public health problems largely because of reported associations with negative health outcomes including dementia. We adopt a public health perspective and review the relationship between loneliness/isolation and dementia focussing on how these concepts are defined, measured, and reported. We identified community based longitudinal studies which measured loneliness/isolation at baseline and dementia at follow up (minimum 12 months) published up to February 2021. We identified 12 papers for loneliness and 15 for isolation which demonstrated substantial heterogeneity in how exposure (loneliness/ isolation) and outcome (dementia) were measured and reported. For example, dementia was measured in 5 different ways: death, hospitalisation, clinical diagnosis, dementia screening tools or cognitive function. Evidence to support a relationship between loneliness/isolation and dementia is inconclusive largely because of this methodological heterogeneity. Using consistent exposure and outcome measures is a prerequisite for determining the health consequences of loneliness and isolation.
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spelling pubmed-89698362022-04-01 A Public Health Analysis of the Relationship Between Loneliness, Isolation, and Dementia Victor, Christina Innov Aging Abstracts Loneliness and isolation are now characterised as major public health problems largely because of reported associations with negative health outcomes including dementia. We adopt a public health perspective and review the relationship between loneliness/isolation and dementia focussing on how these concepts are defined, measured, and reported. We identified community based longitudinal studies which measured loneliness/isolation at baseline and dementia at follow up (minimum 12 months) published up to February 2021. We identified 12 papers for loneliness and 15 for isolation which demonstrated substantial heterogeneity in how exposure (loneliness/ isolation) and outcome (dementia) were measured and reported. For example, dementia was measured in 5 different ways: death, hospitalisation, clinical diagnosis, dementia screening tools or cognitive function. Evidence to support a relationship between loneliness/isolation and dementia is inconclusive largely because of this methodological heterogeneity. Using consistent exposure and outcome measures is a prerequisite for determining the health consequences of loneliness and isolation. Oxford University Press 2021-12-17 /pmc/articles/PMC8969836/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igab046.918 Text en © The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) ), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Abstracts
Victor, Christina
A Public Health Analysis of the Relationship Between Loneliness, Isolation, and Dementia
title A Public Health Analysis of the Relationship Between Loneliness, Isolation, and Dementia
title_full A Public Health Analysis of the Relationship Between Loneliness, Isolation, and Dementia
title_fullStr A Public Health Analysis of the Relationship Between Loneliness, Isolation, and Dementia
title_full_unstemmed A Public Health Analysis of the Relationship Between Loneliness, Isolation, and Dementia
title_short A Public Health Analysis of the Relationship Between Loneliness, Isolation, and Dementia
title_sort public health analysis of the relationship between loneliness, isolation, and dementia
topic Abstracts
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8969836/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igab046.918
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