THE ELDERLY AND THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL ISOLATION DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Abstract

A respiratory disease detected in the city of Wuhan, China, entitled COVID-19 has spread rapidly around the world prompting the World Health Organization to enact an International Public Health Emergency. The impact that the pandemic caused in the lives of many people with exposure to the virus directly or indirectly, due to social isolation measures, caused a great damage to the mental health of the population, especially the elderly, as loneliness and isolation became greater among these than in other age groups. Thus, this article sought to identify the impact of social isolation on the health of the elderly during the Covid-19 pandemic through a literature review. The search for relevant works on the subject was carried out through the Pubmed, Scielo, Capes Periodicals and Virtual Health Library databases. For this, 28 articles were analyzed and at the end of the analysis 8 articles were selected with important reports to compose the present study. After analyzing them, it was possible to verify that the elderly were more harmed in the midst of social isolation, as in addition to physical and health risk factors, they are more prone to psychological risks such as loneliness and its consequences.