Loneliness and social isolation favor the onset of dementia. This is revealed by a series of scientific studies, according to which a case of dementia is diagnosed every three seconds, with 10 million new patients a year. In the journal “Neurology”, Lawrence Whalley, of the Institute of Applied Health Sciences of the University of Aberdeen (Scotland), states that recent research “provide a complex integrative analysis of epidemiological, neuroimaging and molecular genetic data showing how social isolation is related to the incidence of dementia. Furthermore, they add strong evidence to what could be the possible mechanisms, showing an association between social isolation, reduction of cerebral gray matter volume, presence of unexpressed genes already known to be linked to Alzheimer’s disease “.
A study coordinated by the Institute of Science and Technology for Brain-Inspired Intelligence of Shanghai, we read in the “Corriere della Sera”, reveals that “in the light of the results of this study, it would not be so much the feeling of loneliness that increases the risk of developing cognitive disorders, but the real social isolation. Those who find themselves isolated and advanced age frequently expose themselves to this conditiontends to lose brain matter, especially gray matter, that part of the brain where the bodies of neurons are located”.
LONELINESS AND ISOLATION FAVOR DEMENTIA: SCIENTIFIC STUDIES
In The Lancet, Adam Roth of the Department of Sociology at Oklahoma State University at Stillwater clarified: “In agreement with as deemed by medical, social and psychological expertssocial connectivity most likely functions through multiple mechanisms influencing the decline of cognitive function in old age. It has been proposed that people who engage significantly in multiple social domains are in fact exercising their neurobiological circuits. so that they are protected against the degenerative effects of dementia and other age-related cognitive impairments”.
Diego De Leo, psychiatrist and president of the fifth AIP National Day against loneliness of the elderlyheld in Padua at the Altinate San Gaetano Cultural Center, to the microphones of the “Corriere della Sera” asserted: “Studies conducted in various parts of the world, but especially in the USA and the United Kingdom, have shown that up to 50 percent of the population could suffer from loneliness. They are alone children and teenagers, alone are also young mothers, divorced people, the elderly, people who care for them and people in mourning “.
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