Page 33 - Petelin, Ana, ur. 2024. Zdravje delovno aktivnih in starejših odraslih / Health of Working-Age and Older Adults. Zbornik povzetkov z recenzijo ▪︎ Book of Abstracts. Koper: Založba Univerze na Primorskem/University of Primorska Press

Loneliness in people with dementia: senses, limitations
and the role of close relationships

1
Martina Mravlja , Nuša Zadravec Šedivy 1,2
1 University of Primorska, Andrej Marušič Institute, Koper, Slovenia
2 University of Primorska, Faculty of Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Information
Technologies, Koper, Slovenia

Introduction: People with dementia are often exposed to a higher risk of moderate or
severe loneliness, which can be the result of both cognitive decline and inconsistent
expectations or inappropriate responses from the environment. Researching the psy-
chosocial experiences of people with dementia is crucial to improving their quality of
life.
Methods: A comprehensive systematic review of qualitative research in the field of
loneliness, cognitive decline and dementia was conducted without time constraints,
with the aim of reviewing existing studies. In the thematic analysis, we highlighted the
subthemes of ‚stimulation and distraction‘, ‚cognitive limitations and other losses‘, and
‚the role of the environment‘.
Findings: Researching the psychosocial experiences of people with dementia highlights
the importance of including people with dementia in research in a way that is adapted
to their individual abilities. Loneliness in people with dementia develops gradually, with
people with dementia associating loneliness with cognitive decline indirectly by grad-
ually withdrawing from social relationships, often expressing this as their own choice.
Such withdrawing behavior is often associated with an inadequate response from the
environment, which can put people with dementia in an unequal position with unre-
alistic expectations, that can further intensify the feeling of loneliness. Caregivers are
more than people with dementia focused on cognitive decline, often paying less atten-
tion to other aspects of the health or needs of people with dementia. Connectedness
as the opposite of loneliness in people with dementia is founded on shared moments
and mutual understanding that develops from shared experiences and over a long pe-
riod of time. In such a relationship, people with dementia rely on their loved ones‘ in-
tuitive understanding of what they would do or want in a given situation. Further re-
search is needed on these compensatory strategies, which are developed by people
with dementia during the course of the progressive disease. duševno zdravje delovno aktivnih in starejših odraslih | mental health of working-age and older adults
Discussion and conclusions: In the context of dementia, there is a lack of research ori-
entation on the topic of loneliness focused on improving the quality of life. A system-
atic review of the literature suggests that loneliness and cognitive decline can also be
studied in the context of moderate and severe dementia with appropriate adjustments
that are not based exclusively on verbal data collection techniques. It is important to
deepen the understanding of both the compensatory strategies of people with de-
mentia as well as the compensatory capacities of their closer social network.
Keywords: loneliness, dementia, qualitative research, systematic literature review

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