Seniors find lifeline in phone support groups
Senior American citizens are finding solace in telephone support groups, such as those run by the Senior Center Without Walls in Oakland or Friendship Line in San Francisco. Tackling loneliness and isolation through organised group telephone calls, organizations are offering elderly Americans a way to connect as estimates put socially isolated adults at 1 in 5 over the age of 50 or roughly 8m people. Issues such as vision and hearing loss, as well as grief from losses such as spousal death, can be isolating. The impact of isolation and loneliness on health has been researched, with the results suggesting that lack of human connection is as dangerous as smoking, alcohol abuse, obesity or lack of exercise. Services directed specifically at older adults are useful for tackling isolation and elderly citizens’ reluctance to reach out to suicide or prevention hotlines for help or companionship.
The phone rang the other afternoon inside 91-year-old Lynnie Rayburn’s disheveled South Berkeley apartment. Although confined to a wheelchair and unable to move more than a few inches, she had little trouble picking up the receiver.

“Hello, Lynn?” came a woman’s bright voice through the speaker. “I’m going to connect you to your class.”

Across the line, six other seniors waited with Rayburn, ready to flex their vocal muscles for the afternoon’s call-in session, “Sing-Along Broadway.” Over about 50 minutes, participants gave a cappella renditions of songs from “Fiddler on the Roof.”

The session is one of dozens of over-the-phone classes and support groups available to seniors in the Bay Area and beyond. Senior Center Without Walls in Oakland runs more than 80 of them. The small nonprofit is among several organizations in the region striving to tackle a growing and frequently unrecognized problem among seniors: loneliness and social isolation.

For Rayburn, who lives alone, has no surviving family members and is besieged by a variety of health issues, the call-in groups are a lifeline. She participates in classes daily, and facilitates five classes as a volunteer, including a session that encourages callers to talk about things they’re grateful for and another that allows them to participate in philosophical debates.

When not on the phone, Rayburn dedicates hours to dreaming up discussion topics and ideas for new groups, which she refers to as her “art form.” A retired Alameda County social worker, Rayburn is convinced her mind would have long ago floated “into outer space” if not for the mental stimulation and social interaction the calls provide.

“I have this need to be of service,” Rayburn said. “I couldn’t handle life without being needed.”

In the United States, an estimated 1 in 5 adults over age 50 are socially isolated, according to the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging. That’s at least 8 million people nationwide.

In San Francisco, about 22 percent of the population is over age 60, according to estimates by the California Department of Aging. That’s the highest concentration of people over 60 in any of California’s 12 most populous counties. Of that group, about 24 percent reside by themselves, compared with a statewide average of 18 percent. A report by the San Francisco Department of Aging and Adults Services described isolation — social, physical and cultural — as a “bright red thread” of concern when it comes to providing services to the elderly and disabled population.

Dr. Carla Perissinotto, a geriatrician with UCSF who visits homebound seniors and sees others at the Over 60 Health Center in Berkeley, said she encounters deeply lonely elderly people every day. They may have hearing or vision loss that prevents them from interacting with others or even enjoying simple activities like watching television. Others are reeling from emotional losses such as the death of a spouse. Some feel they no longer have a purpose after retirement.

Loneliness “is everywhere, you just have to ask,” Perissinotto said.

It is more than an emotional or social predicament. Scientists are increasingly tying loneliness to a higher risk for physical health problems, cognitive decline and early death. Research suggests a lack of social connections is as dangerous to human well-being as smoking and alcohol abuse, and even more of a heath risk than obesity and lack of exercise.

One recent study of more than 180,000 adults tied loneliness to a 29 percent increased risk of heart disease and a 32 percent higher risk of stroke. Another analysis found that people who live alone are almost a third more likely to die within a seven-year study period than those who live with others.

“Loneliness is still not seen as a big medical issue and as big a public health problem as it should be,” said Perissinotto, whose own research has tied loneliness to poor health and declining mobility.

Clinicians typically don’t screen patients for loneliness, and even if they do, there’s little research to help them decide what treatment to suggest, she said. Several Bay Area organizations are leading the way in figuring out how to help lonely seniors.

An example is San Francisco’s Friendship Line, the only accredited crisis intervention line in the country targeting older people. Founder Patrick Arbore started the program in 1973 after he realized the regular suicide prevention line where he worked rarely received calls from seniors despite the fact that seniors account for a disproportionate percentage of suicides in the United States.

“When we would answer the phone ‘Hello, Suicide Prevention,’ if it was a younger person the younger person would start talking,” Arbore said. “But when we would get a hang-up on that, we kind of thought, that’s probably an older person.”

At the Friendship Line’s boiler room within the Institute on Aging on Geary Boulevard, a half dozen volunteers work around the clock, taking calls and dialing out to seniors. The line handles 8,000 calls a month, up from 50 when it first started. Calls come in from all over the country, a sign that similar phone bank centers are needed elsewhere.

Ernestine Moore, 77, who lives alone in the Duboce Triangle neighborhood, gets Friendship Line calls twice a day. Moore sought help in 2013 initially for daily reminders to take medications for depression, but soon realized she enjoyed having someone to talk to as well. Her three-decade career as a nurse was coming to an end, she was unprepared for retirement, and hip problems made staying active difficult, she said.

Moore has an adult granddaughter and 8-year-old great-grandson in town, but “if you constantly bombard your family with your feelings of insecurity, they soon pull away from you,” she said. “This way I can burden the Friendship Line with that and then when my family calls, I’m grandma.”

Senior Center Without Walls, meanwhile, has almost 600 seniors who regularly call in to their classes and group chats. Sessions range from educational lectures on health, to social activities such as trivia challenges and bingo, or discussion groups on women’s issues or historical events.

A survey of callers to the organization revealed a marked increase in participant’s feelings of social connection, improved mental health and intellectual stimulation, said director Amber Carroll.

“Probably on a weekly basis a participant will tell us that this program literally saved their life,” said Katie Wade, the organization’s program manager. “They were thinking of suicide and then found they could reconnect over the phone to other people.”

Back at the Friendship Line, Arbore said American culture is beset by ageism and an obsession with staying young. That’s unrealistic at a time when more people than ever are living past 80, he said.

“People are like, oh good, we’re going to be living longer. Except that you’re not going to be 40 for the next 50 years ... You’re going to have to deal with chronic health issues, the possibility of dementia,” he said. “One needs to be able to extend physical health and mental health as long as possible. And we know that if people are isolated and fiercely lonely, that’s not going to happen.”

Claudia Boyd-Barrett writes for the Center for Health Reporting at the Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics at the University of Southern California. Reporting for this story was supported by a grant from the Gary and Mary West Foundation.

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