Elderly Problems During COVID-19: A Narrative Review

Elderly Problems During COVID-19: A Narrative Review

Tiffany Field, PhD

University of Miami/Miller School of Medicine and Fielding Graduate University

This narrative review summarizes published research on psychological problems of the elderly during COVID-19. This includes brief reviews of 54 studies that have focused on loneliness, anxiety, depression and/or sleep problems and their comorbidities. Risk factors for these problems have included pre-existing conditions, infection, inactivity, fear of COVID, fear of death, and lack of social media skills. Buffers for the problems have included exercise, cognitive behavior therapy, acupuncture and melatonin. Limitations of this literature are that the studies are typically surveys, they focus on infections or psychological problems but rarely on the combination of those problems, and they are highly variable on recruitment during lockdown and non-lockdown periods as well as varying on their measures, precluding the use of meta-analyses.

Keywords: Elderly, COVID, anxiety, depression, sleep problems, inactivity

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How to cite this article:

Tiffany Field. Elderly Problems During COVID-19: A Narrative Review. International Journal of Psychological Research and Reviews, 2022, 5:59. DOI: 10.28933/ijprr-2022-05-0507

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