Experts advocate including loneliness in diabetes approach strategies, especially in elderly patients, since "plays an important role" in the disease, said the head of the Geriatrics Service at the University Hospital of Getafe (Madrid), Dr. Leocadio Rodríguez Mañas.
As explained, within the fifth edition of the Astrazeneca Foundation Chair of innovation in Diabetes, together with the Institut d'Es Biomèdiques in Barcelona (IDIBAPS), "it is associated with a series of behaviors such as nutritional deficiencies, adherence problems to treatment,isolation, depressive disorders and lower activity that are not the most suitable for patients. "
Thus, it considers it necessary to "detect loneliness to, subsequently explore how the subject lives, the impact on the disease and therapeutic compliance in order to draw a global treatment of the patient."And, in the event that it "does not imply a stressful situation, the patient would be monitored, but on the contrary it affects negatively, it would have to be intervened through advice and activities that break with loneliness or even contact social services, inthe most serious cases. "
Of the four and a half million people living alone in Spain, two million are over 65 years old;In addition, 32% of people 55 years and older feel alone.Given this situation, we must take into account what patients' lifestyle is.
In this sense, the senior consultant of the Psychiatry Service of the Clinic Hospital of Barcelona, Dr. Miquel Bernardo, has affirmed that "lifestyles are increasingly being identified as prognosis factors in health by making situations of physical vulnerability, such asDiabetes, in states of greater fragility. "
Along the same lines, Dr. Ramon Gomis, director of the Astrazeneca Foundation Chair of Diabetes innovation, said that "we need to incorporate loneliness not only in the prevention of diabetes, but also in its diagnosis and treatment", referring to adisease that currently affects more than 5.3 million Spaniards.