The Living Alone with Cognitive Impairment Project serves older adults living alone with cognitive impairment in the United States, as well as worldwide. Our goals:
- Support researchers conduct rigorous research on this population with quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods.
- Ensure that policies and programs are designed to support older adults living alone with cognitive impairment, who often have limited supports from caregivers.
- Promote and support all kind of research to illuminate challenges, as well as best practices on to living alone with cognitive impairment. Elena Portacolone is available to share protocols (e.g., recruitment methods, consent protocols, strategies to recruit participants who are not diagnosed) to allow researchers to expand research on living alone with cognitive impairment.
- Disseminate public policy recommendations
- Support journalists writing articles on living alone with cognitive impairment
- Serve policy makers, clinicians, researchers by raising awareness and fostering interdisciplinary as well as international collaborations
Our briefs provide experts' recommendations on strategies to support older adults living alone with cognitive impairment manage their medication, access home care aides, and timely diagnoses. All briefs are here, the "Policy Briefs" page of our website.
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 have a hard time remembering now. I really hate that. That’s tearing me apart. And I don’t know what to do about that.”
— Black Woman living alone with cognitive impairment