With Covid, there is a hot boom in cognitive impairment for the elderly

Psychophysical health alarm for the elderly. “The pandemic has created a veritable epidemic of cognitive problems linked to the lack of sociability induced by the need to protect oneself from contagions. And now, when the warm season could have helped to rebuild a little social life, too much heat prevents it again. time, and the problem gets worse. ” To trace the picture, at Adnkronos Salute is Silvestro Scotti, national secretary of the Federation of general practitioners (Fimmg). “After two years of the pandemic – explains Scotti – we are seeing particularly compromised the cognitive aspects of our elderly patients. It is a very widespread phenomenon. In most cases they are people who, responsibly, have reduced their sociability to avoid contagion. Continuing to do so, more and more over time, due to the fear of Covid. The stimuli have thus faded. We find a general decay in many elderly people that is not so much organic as it is intellectual. This is a situation on which doctors of the family have paid the utmost attention and are trying to give answers “. To ‘row against’ the weather situation. “With days of such extreme heat, the chances of resuming contact also fade”. As family doctors “we must still invite the elderly to socialize, perhaps in the evening, when the heat is reduced. psychic well-being. The restoration of sociality is for the elderly the best strategy to curb cognitive decline and keep away many forms that we are increasingly encountering: neurosis, depression, discomfort. Patients are more aggressive, more closed, less available to relationships . The family doctor’s task is to recover the relational aspect through the strength of the fiduciary relationship with the patient. If I call the elderly patient who I have not seen in the office for a while, I can break the wall that has built around it. and he can be persuaded to resume social activities that he did before Covid, from dancing to playing cards, daily things interrupted by the pandemic