ANN ARBOR — Caring for a family member with a significant illness is a difficult burden to bear, and certain ailments can exact an especially heavy toll. Dementia, in its many forms, can be one such illness, and dementia caregivers can be especially vulnerable to loneliness. This can be a result of challenges such as reduced personal time and social interactions due to greater caregiving intensity and burden, being unrecognized by a loved one, and feelings of powerlessness.

However, a new study reveals that daily interactions with friends, even through something as simple as a text message, may reduce momentary loneliness in dementia caregivers.

Crystal Ng, a research fellow at the Institute for Social Research’s (ISR) Survey Research Center (SRC), led a project detailed in Friendship and Momentary Loneliness in Dementia Caregiving: Daily Experiences of Caregivers with High and Low Burden available from the Journal of Gerontology. The project 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 momentary loneliness.

“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, this effect was particularly pronounced among caregivers who had especially 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.”

The momentary approach to gathering information sets this study apart from cross-sectional studies that collect loneliness data at only one time point. Previous studies have asked caregivers to rate their loneliness over a period of time in the past, perhaps a week or a month, but according to Ng, a more in-the-moment approach to data collection gives a more dynamic and accurate picture.

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

Ng’s research was partly inspired by her family’s experience.. Her mother-in-law served as the primary caregiver to  who had with Lewy body dementia, and benefited greatly from a strong support system of friends and family, demonstrating the importance of support networks and reaching out to those in need of assistance while caring for a loved one with dementia.

“Send a text to a friend or make the time to get in touch with them ,” Ng said. “I think that 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.”

Ng and the team plan to explore friendship-based caregiving in future research, understanding factors that drive adults to provide caregiving to friends.

The paper resulting from this project, Friendship and Momentary Loneliness in Dementia Caregiving: Daily Experiences of Caregivers with High and Low Burden, is available via the Journal of Gerontology.

Contact: Jon Meerdink ([email protected])