Ep 5 - A unique approach to address social isolation and loneliness

In this Episode we take a deep dive into ways to address social isolation and loneliness. Kerry Thomas, a gerontologist and the Executive Director of Lifespan Resources. Their signature program pairs university students with older adults who are aging in place at home, via Zoom, believe it or not! Kerry also shares some signs to look out for with our parents with regard to social isolation and loneliness. Enjoy!  

Transcript

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Welcome to the Helping Our Parents Thrive podcast, here to support adult children of seniors like me and you in caring for our parents and ourselves. I'm Melissa Uppleshoten, your host. Today we are doing a deep dive into loneliness and social isolation. As you will hear, it is not always so obvious to detect in our parents. It is a scary fact that loneliness and social isolation are linked to early death, but I promise it's not all doom and gloom in this episode. There's a lot of laughter today. We are speaking with Carrie Thomas, the executive director of the nonprofit Lifespan Resources. Their signature program pairs university students and older adults via Zoom, believe it or not. Carrie holds a master's degree in gerontology from Georgia State University and a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin Madison. Before becoming a gerontologist, Carrie served As a VP in a real estate firm. And the crazy thing, if you had a chance to listen to my interview with Joni Roberts, the retired hospice nurse, she and Carrie both went back to school and changed their careers at the same age, 48. Such inspirations for following your passion at any age. Carrie resides with her husband, Joe in Atlanta, and has two grown children. Enjoy the conversation. I'm glad you're here. Harry, thank you so much for being here. I'm super excited about this conversation and it was interesting when I was getting prepared for this. I was like, even the word gerontology, I knew it was about older adults, but I really didn't understand what gerontology was about. So would you mind giving my listeners a better understanding of what gerontology actually is? Sure. Yes. And thank you for having me, Melissa. I'm thrilled to be here. I think that the easiest way to define gerontology is the social and psychological side of aging, not the clinical side. So I get calls from friends and, people I know in the industry that are do you have any tips for me and what I do with my dad when he's falls or what do I do with my parent when they're not doing well or not feeling well? And I have to say it's really, Geriatrics the clinical side, the medical side of aging. And gerontology is a finite study of social and psychological adaptation to aging. Thank you. That is a simple way to put it. Okay, Carrie, what inspired you to, to actually work with seniors? I grew up with a lot of older relatives. My dad's one of 10. My mom's one of eight. They were the younger in their list of siblings. So I had older aunts and uncles. I had grandparents. I was super close to really mostly on my maternal side. And I was the kid who was always hanging in my grandma's kitchen, listening to her stories from Poland where her and my grandfather originated from versus being out and playing with my cousins in the backyard. So it was always a very comfortable thing for me. I really appreciated the wisdom and the value right there, even as a younger age. And then, I ended up chasing a corporate career after getting a college degree. And, I did fine with my corporate job for Almost 30 years and something started tugging at me, that I just needed more meaning in my life. So, I decided to start volunteering with older adults. And I happen to know someone that was the president of a hospice company. And I thought, Oh, hospice wasn't exactly what I was thinking when I was thinking of aging, older adults. I mean, they're going to die, right. But it was the most rewarding experience. I had friends that would say, Carrie, how can you do this? They're dying. And I said, You know what I feel that we're mutually inspiring each other and I'm making them happy end of life and they're teaching me and telling me their stories Because that's what I did melissa. I wrote end of life stories as a volunteer off and on for about five six almost seven years. But then it led me to finally say, you know what, I want to pivot and do something different with my life as I get older. And I went back and got my master's in gerontology. I just embarked on this journey so that's how I got into it. Carrie, you are totally lit up as you are talking about this and it's just so beautiful to see. So thank you so much for answering that calling, carrie, you are the Executive Director of Lifespan Resources. And I just wanted to understand a little bit more. I know I'm actually on the board, but I want to hear it and your words, about the mission of lifespan Lifespan has, believe it or not, a 41 year history. Dates back to the early eighties and it's. Always been a social enrichment program for older adults. It was designed as a social and educational enrichment program to keep people in community and not just get lonely and depressed and isolated at home. We are still honoring that legacy of social enrichment first and foremost. But we have pivoted the platform to more of a deep dive around loneliness and social isolation, and how do we, how do we really make a difference there. Our mission is twofold, is one is to bridge the generation gap by bringing young and older adults together. And the second is to help prevent and or alleviate loneliness and social isolation. That's wonderful. Thank you. I understand that you've got a signature program that has been very successful, can you tell me more about that? I probably should tell you how I got involved in lifespan I knew one person who was a participant at late eighties and she said, Oh my gosh, you have a master's in gerontology. Would you want to be an instructor? And this has been when they were still meeting in person I know you do life story workshops. So I was brought on to lifespan as a facilitator of the workshop. But because we are coming out of a pandemic, I suggested to the former executive director, we do it online well, she had already been doing some classes that way. And she said, sure, give it a whirl. We did it online. It worked beautifully. And the older adults in that group had already been very Acclimated and comfortable with using zoom as what she had trained them on and so it worked beautiful long story short it led to a Board position and then ultimately it led to the executive director position when the former Ed announced her retirement. So it's been a little bit of an evolution. But we really formed good connections and relationships. Online, virtually. And I started thinking from my studies in gerontology, and I thought, there's no reason why we can't bring a sense of community to people as they age, especially not, not so much the people that still are out there and driving and maybe first retiring, but how about the oldest old, we call that in, in the gerontology world, the oldest old, the people who may be Don't get out anymore. They don't drive. They're isolated. They're lonely because, if they're lucky enough to have some family to check on them, good for them. But that's not always the case. And so my passion came from some of the studies I remembered researching in getting my master's and also just seeing the screen come alive with the life story workshops. I'm like, Oh, this is slam dunk. We're going to do this. And my board at the time was like, yeah, let's give it a whirl. The other thing I thought about at the time was not only just me being there and facilitating programs, but how about some young people? We, as a, as a society, haven't crossed over very well intergenerationally ever since the rise of senior living communities where ultimately that created age segregation, right? There's a purpose for those The only problem was it made it a little harder for people to stay integrated with other ages in society. So that's where I thought, okay, Lifespan Intergenerational. That's a mouthful. Let's call it Lifespan IG. Let's get in there, connect, clap and learn together. I've been forging paths with universities, Georgia State, University of Georgia, Kennesaw State, the local schools. I hope to do this nationally one day, but you have to start and get good in in your first market, and that's what we've been doing. So yes. Good. So smart. And Carrie, I have to tell you, when you first told me that you do this over zoom, my mouth dropped. That is so awesome. You would think that that generation just would not be amicable to doing something over zoom and you're proving it wrong. Yeah, well, I have to admit, Melissa, I do have naysayers when I speak at different industry events or conferences. I always have the naysayers will be like, people can't have meaningful connections that way. And I said, Oh, yes, they can. Let me just tell you. And, I've recorded A lot of footage. I have snapped pictures just because I want to go back and look and see the happy faces. And it's very, very possible. Let's just face it, the pandemic changed that for us. Even though older adults are as a rule, less comfortable, didn't grow up with all this technology. There are people who. All their lives are willing to learn and willing to expand. And before you know it, you feel like you're part of a group. That's so great. That's so great. Thank you for sharing that. So, stories. I am certain that you have a ton of stories about the connections that you've helped bridge. So would you mind sharing a couple with us? Sure. First I should probably tell you our formal tagline. So our formal tagline for Lifespan IG or Lifespan Intergenerational is bridging generations for better communities. But our informal tagline that we all remind each other every time we get on the screen together is we're here to connect, laugh, and learn. So our informal tagline is let's just connect, laugh, and learn. What I thought I'd do is share each of those together in a story. Connection, it makes me think of, one of our social work students from Georgia State was from a very small town. In middle to South Georgia. She gets on a call with, randomly, with these older adults, and we go around the first time and of course introduce ourselves, one of the women who's in her late 80s grew up in the same town. So, connection, boom, right away. They ended up just sharing. And I'd have to say, Hey, you two, you're disrupting the group, cause they'd get on sometimes early and sign on and just talk about they knew the same places. They actually had some same family friends in common. So, that was just an immediate connection and then laugh. We laugh all the time. So I could go on forever, but one time in particular, one of our older adult participants who's, 83. I think He called me after one of our sessions and said, Carrie, would you mind if I'd leave the session next week? Sometimes I ask them if they have anything in particular they want to share with the younger adults. He said I want to ask the students. What would they do with their time if they did not have access to technology? Like how would they spend their time? So he did he asked it and the first one of our students We had four or five on the on this call at the time and maybe six seven older adults And one of them just gasped. She screamed. And she put her hands over her mouth and she goes, Oh my gosh, I wouldn't get anywhere. I wouldn't know how to get out of my neighborhood. I wouldn't know how to get my Starbucks. And The whole screen erupted laughing, and she was funny. It was just so we so just the laughter. And then it led to conversations about the first telephone and having a cord and you're taking the cord and wiring it around the corner of a room So you get away from your family to have privacy and these students were in awe They couldn't believe how technology had changed but It was just a really great conversation. And then learning, there's two groups to our platform, Alyssa, you know this, but I'll refresh you. It's lifespan intergenerational, which is an eight week platform. And then there's lifespan alumni group. We say that after you go through eight weeks with us, we don't want to just drop you and now you go back to being isolated and lonely. So we provide a platform that we call a Lifespan Alum And we offer social and an educational opportunity twice a week. So there's a lot of learning I bring in different speakers for the alumni program. We had one student present her capstone on social isolation and Things to be aware of with that. In the intergenerational groups I'm finding that the learning is done just organically. The kids learn from the older adults because of just things they're saying and things they remember. We have two older adults right now that one was, raised in Budapest, Hungary, and the other one in Germany during World War II, they were hiding out with Mother running them from one house to the next. I mean, these kids are hearing some real stuff. Wow. So there's a lot of learning. And, my last story, which was laughter and learning I'll share is we have a 92 year old man who's been in the program forever He really is like my MVP. And he said I would love to throw a bunch of trivia at these kids. A trivia hour. About history and geography. And so these kids were like, what? I don't know. He would just ask questions about the highest mountain peak and national parks and it was just great. So, Harry, that takes a lot of courage to release the reins and let other people take the lead I'm really impressed that you're able to do that. That's wonderful. Well, part of it is, as you can see, the more excited I am about a topic, the more I talk. But the value of this program is not just me facilitating everything. In the beginning when no one really knows each other yes but when it gets going, there's no reason for me to be dominating. I want to do is provide the platform for them to connect. And in any way that happens, yeah, that's wonderful. Okay, so my listeners are mainly the children of seniors, as you know. And I'm wondering, is there any practical advice that you can give them to be looking out for their parents to see if they might be suffering from isolation. Yes. So, I'm going to define the two, because I think that they're, they are distinct, but people often confuse them and interchange them. So, loneliness is the subjective feeling of being alone regardless of the amount of social contact. Versus social isolation is the objective lack of social connections or interactions. So, one is more subjective in nature and one is more objective. So, I happen to be, an adult child of aging parents. Let's start with loneliness. Loneliness is a little harder because it's personal. And it may not be expressed, but social withdrawal when people typically were socially active, and now they're not, if they express feelings of sadness or their personality changes and they don't see themselves. Changes in any kind of behavior, could detect loneliness. They used to make sure that they had their weekly coffee with someone, or at least if they don't drive anymore, a phone call, or is excited to say about a phone call they had with a good friend that they now are not calling anymore. Because loneliness kind of creeps up on us and we don't necessarily know we're getting lonely so as an adult child it's not bad to say, Hey, is everything okay? And see if they express it. Because I've noticed lately that you don't appear as happy or excited or you're sleeping a little more or their hygiene. Maybe for example, their physical appearance, maybe Mom always got up, put her lipstick and earrings on, and she's not doing it anymore. These can also be interchangeable with depression. Advanced loneliness, we know leads to depression. Looking for those things and staying really in tune with their normal behavior. And then any emotional changes, like are they lashing out? Are they irritable? Is that in their nature? Are they really quiet when normally they're chatty. Do they seem agitated and wound up when normally they're really chill and laid back? And then of course any kind of hopelessness. They're like, why would I bother going anymore? I'm just going to die in the next year or two anyway. Why would I join a club? Why would I join this?, so, Carrie, I know. This is more serious than a lot of us realize. And I know you've got some statistics that back that up. Would you mind sharing that with my listeners? I get a lot of my stats from the National Institute on CDC, as far as these kind of loneliness and social isolation statistics. According to the CDC, 25 percent of adults over age 65 are socially isolated. And we know that according to the U. S. Surgeon General's report the last two years, social isolation increases the risk of heart disease by 29%, dementia by 50%, and stroke by 32%. And he compares the risk of social isolation with, smoking 15 cigarettes a day. I have not heard that. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. AARP has, reiterated these statistics in several of their articles as well. So, loneliness itself is a detriment to wellbeing and increases, like I said, more depression and anxiety. Loneliness. My statistic on that is that 43% of people age 60 and over self-report, feeling some stage of loneliness. That's almost half of our people. 60 and over, right? So the other thing interesting about that. Melissa is that it doesn't just have to be the oldest old and it affects people of all ages. And the U. S. Surgeon General has declared loneliness. The greatest health epidemic for us because people who are younger, also isolate also are lonely. A lot of it, as you know, has to do with their phones and they're replacing being with people and engaging because they can just sit on their social media tools. So that's a couple stats. I do have a couple more statistics about just intergenerational. Oh, I'd love to hear. Yeah, please, please, which is one of my passion points, which is why I wanted to bring in younger people, nearly eight and 10 adults would appreciate or prefer spending more time with people outside their age group. And 92 percent of Americans studied believe that intergenerational activities can help reduce loneliness across all ages. And that is from the Eisner Foundation and Generations United who are both all over this topic. The other half of our mission is about bridging that generation gap and increasing, understanding empathy between generations, breaking down stereotypes, and that's what we're doing at Lifespan, trying to do all of it. I love it. Okay. So if a adult child of a senior notice that their parents are experiencing loneliness and socialized isolation, any suggestions on what they should do then? Like, what could they do to help address it? If they're not able to participate in one of your programs? Yeah, I think, that's all about the timing. In my opinion, if you start noticing early signs, you can come up with interventions for them. you can start encouraging them to do things. You can try to maybe encourage them to do lifespan, encourage them to do things more in groups they used to, or, talk to their family practitioner obviously if you think it's beyond that. And maybe they, they are getting depressed and need medication or therapy. I would say that the main difference in how you handle that is The stage at which you're starting to notice things, I'll give you an example like risky behaviors as one red flag for something's going on, and people automatically assume this is memory, but this could be loneliness and I'll tell you what it is. So mom's now starting to talk to some guy that liked a couple of her Facebook posts online and now they've exchanged private numbers, say on Facebook Messenger, and now she's talking to some person in another part of potentially the world and the judgment is not there, but she's so lonely. Like, why is she doing that? She's not making bad decisions anywhere else. Her mind seems fine, but all of a sudden, she's got a new friend across the country named Sam or Bill or Bob. And who is this guy, mom? You know, that's a risky behavior. And then, you know, we've all heard this. This leads to fraudulent activity. The next thing we know, mom's wiring this guy money. There's a bigger problem on our hands. So, if you notice that there's just risky things going on, I call them risky behaviors, but things that are really out of character, you need to get in front of that. What I'm hearing you saying is being inquisitive, asking the questions. Carrie Anything that you wanted to share that I didn't ask you? I would be remiss not to mention some of the benefits of our program. If your parent were interested or you think that you could get them interested in something like this they're going to say why would I do this? It's interesting that the benefits they're mutual for both young and old a welcoming safe space to share wisdom and values and life lessons with the next generation To create meaningful social connections Both with young and old, you know, there's other older adults that I see connect You That didn't otherwise know each other. Now they have a new friend. It's connections across generations. Our program excels at giving people an opportunity To have a purpose every week, a purpose driven activity. So enhancing purpose and, and increasing greater emotional, psychological wellbeing, by sharing these experiences with the people, by having a place that's. A group to call mine. This is my group. It's just really beneficial for for older adults and younger adults. And also to gain a better empathy and understanding Of younger adults. We're real quick to say they're lazy or they can't get their heads out of their phones but they have a lot to offer And it's beyond just teaching you about your phone. They share what they're learning. They share things about their family. We talk about family recipes one time and everyone had fun with that. Just understanding that they're like you in some ways, they're just a little bit earlier in their journey. And they do have fears. They do worry about the economy. They do worry about how they're going to pay rent. And they have things that we thought about when we were young too. They have love interests. They have problems with their professors or teachers all that. We stay away from the obvious things. We don't want to offend anybody politically or their religious beliefs. But we do talk about, universal things that weighs on people's minds. Boy, it's really hot out and someone may say, oh, well, that's because we have global warming and somebody else may say, oh, we're probably not right. And so we, we've, we've Finesse that we work through that. But it sometimes really does ads for some interesting content. And this is something that older adults can do from the comfort of their home. They don't have to worry about driving in traffic. They don't have to worry about getting a ride somewhere. They just need a tablet. A computer, some people do it on the phone. It's a little bit of a squishy screen to see everyone, but we do still have people that call in on phone it's convenient, we bring community to those who struggle to get out in community. When you were talking, I was thinking about the concept that you and I have talked about before of we are all one, we are all together in this, and it's beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful. Oh, I'm so glad you're in this position, Carrie. How can people find out more about Lifespan and get in touch with you? Our website is Lifespan Atlanta, altogether, L-I-F-E-S-P-A-N atlanta.org. and Our phone number is(770) 317-4072 I would love to talk to any older adults or their adult children who think this would be a good fit for them. I want to expand and reach as many people as we can help. Carrie, thank you so much. It was such a beautiful conversation and, thank you for following your heart and your passion and doing what you do I appreciate you giving me this opportunity to talk about it. What a great conversation. I hope you loved it as well. My favorite quote was we bring community to those who struggle to get out into community. I am so honored to be on the board of this organization and Carrie and I failed to talk about the fact that Lifespan Resources is a nonprofit and would benefit greatly from financial support. You can find out more about the ways you can give at LifespanAtlanta. org. Thank you for listening. If you got something out of this episode, please be sure to follow or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, and please consider sharing with just one person that you feel might benefit from a little support as well. Visit us at HopThrive. com for more information. I appreciate the opportunity to serve the HopThrive community and for all the aligned, caring adult children it is attracting. Like you, together we thrive.