Friendships can ease loneliness for dementia caregivers

Daily interactions with friends, even through something as simple as a text message, may reduce momentary loneliness for caregivers tending to a family member with dementia.

Providing care for a loved one with dementia can be a difficult burden to bear, and caregivers can be especially vulnerable to loneliness. But social interactions, no matter how small, with friends and other family members can lower feelings of loneliness.

Crystal Ng, a research fellow at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, and colleagues studied 223 dementia caregivers, who reported their social interactions and loneliness every three hours over five days—showing that when caregivers interacted with friends, they also reported lower levels of loneliness.

The study, which appears in the Journal of Gerontology, was supported by the National Institute on Aging and the Michigan Center on the Demography of Aging.

“We found that caregivers reported having interactions with friends in more than 20% of their waking survey prompts,” Ng said. “And these interactions, particularly positive ones, even with not-so-close friends, are related to lower momentary loneliness in daily life.”

According to Ng, the effect was particularly pronounced among caregivers with particularly difficult care responsibilities, or “high-burden” caregivers.

“Interacting with friends appears to be particularly important for high-burden caregivers, and that could be the case because higher-burden caregivers are more at risk of being socially isolated and feeling lonely,” she said.

Previous studies have asked caregivers to rate their loneliness over a period in the past, perhaps a week or a month, but, according to Ng, a more in-the-moment approach to data collection provides a more dynamic and accurate picture.

“This study captured the dynamic fluctuations of loneliness,” she said. “We are not treating loneliness as a personality trait, but as something that fluctuates throughout the day.

“Sending a text to a friend or making the time to get in touch with them can make caregivers feel less lonely and foster a sense of connection amid the burden of dementia. Interventions that encourage caregivers to schedule social interactions with friends in daily life can give them a much-needed emotional lift.”

U-M co-authors include: Angela Turkelson, Anna Kratz and Kira Birditt.