Thread by @NBCNews

The hidden coronavirus health crisis: Elderly people are dying of isolation in nursing homes.
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Reporting by @SuzyKhimm.

(1/8) #NBCNewsThreads

@SuzyKhimm While there is no official tally of elderly people dying from causes linked to social isolation, evidence is mounting that restrictions related to Covid-19 are taking a toll on their health, according to recent research and interviews with experts and families across the US (2/8)

Social isolation was listed as a contributing cause of death for at least 10 Minnesotans — almost all long-term care residents — from June to September, according to state death records; no deaths in the previous two years cited social isolation as a cause. (3/8)

The phenomenon is far harder to track than the number of Covid-19 deaths linked to long-term care facilities — 84,000 as of early Oct., per Kaiser Family Foundation — as it is unusual to list isolation as official cause of death.

But the harms are still real, experts say. (4/8)

One study of a Chicago nursing home found that from Dec. 2019 to the end of April 2020, two-thirds of the residents lost weight, in some cases dramatically — a change that researchers attributed to reduced social interaction, cessation of family visits and schedule changes. (5/8)

“The isolation is robbing them of whatever good days they have left — it accelerates the aging process,” says Joshua Uy, a professor at Univ. of Penn. Perelman School of Medicine.

“You see increased falls, decrease in strength ... You see an acceleration of dementia." (6/8)

Confinement, social isolation and lack of external stimulation are also fueling cognitive decline and depression, which increases the risk of high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke, according to Dr. Louise Aronson, a professor of medicine at Univ. of California, SF. (7/8)

“Sometimes ... you just see someone sitting in a chair with tears running down their face,” Aronson, who is assisting San Francisco’s response to the pandemic in long-term care facilities, says.

“People ask me, ‘Is this the rest of my life? If so, I don’t want to go on.’” (8/8)