Living Alone with Cognitive Impairment
The Living Alone with Cognitive Impairment (LACI) Project has the goal to enhance the well-being of people living alone with cognitive impairment in the United States. Its initiatives are meant to:
- Spotlight people living alone with cognitive impairment, most of whom are older adults
- Catalyze rigorous interdisciplinary, mixed-method, and international research to illuminate challenges, as well as best practices related to living alone with cognitive impairment
- Develop public policy recommendations
To inaugurate a series of policy briefs on people living alone with cognitive impairment in the United States, our first brief offers an overview of this often-invisible population.
In the United States it is estimated that 4.3 million older adults live alone with cognitive impairment, which represents 25% of older adults living with cognitive impairment. Cognitive impairment can range from mild cognitive impairment to dementia.¹
“I was glad that I was diagnosed, because I was feeling crazy. And when I say I’m feeling crazy, things were happening to me that I couldn’t understand, like I got on the bus, and I forgot where I was going.”
—Woman living alone diagnosed with dementia