It is not a country for old people: Italy is one of the Western countries in which growing old presents the worst scenarios, especially compared to Anglo-Saxon countries, where suicide rates in old age are half those that occur in Italy. This is demonstrated by the data relating to loneliness and suicides, which in our country 38% of cases concern people over 65 years of age, although the latter make up just over 20% of the population. The reasons are to be found in loneliness and so-called ageism, the set of discriminations due to age that undermine the enjoyment of the basic rights of the “older” people in our country.
This situation will be discussed at the 24th congress of the Italian Association of Psychogeriatrics, which will be held in Florence from 11 to 13 April, entitled “Integration and innovation. Foundations of psychogeriatric knowledge”. Psychogeriatricians report that the rate of loneliness is double the average in European countries: it is a social problem, but also a clinical one, being associated with an increased risk of depression, sleep disorders, dementia and cardiovascular diseases. Those who have no one to ask for help are 14%, while those who have no one to tell personal things to are 12%, compared to a European average of 6.1% (Eurostat data). Furthermore, according to some studies, ageism and loneliness in the elderly are closely associated.
“The elderly are often excluded from health protection measures, as happened during the pandemic, when places in intensive care were intended for younger people” explains the Diego De Leo, president of Aip.
«This approach was introjected by the elderly themselves, convinced that they cannot be useful to society or active: this is not the result of cognitive impoverishment, but of an impression of their intellectual heritage as society dictates. We therefore need to overturn this model. In addition to ageism, there is a real epidemic of loneliness: Western countries have 30% of elderly people suffering from chronic loneliness and 10% from very severe loneliness, which leads to depression and then in some cases to suicide. . The other oldest country in the world together with Italy, Japan, has counted 45 thousand people who die in complete isolation every year, so much so that teams of “death cleaners“who are responsible for cleaning up the places where these solitary deaths occurred.”
Photo on Joyce huis su Unsplash