Photo Credit: Verin Makcharoen
Reported health benefits of volunteering in older adults include: fewer physical limitations, lower depression, improved well-being, and decreased mortality.
Celebrating Healthy Aging Month in September allows physicians to reflect on ways to improve the lives of older patients during clinical encounters. It also encourages clinicians to think of innovative ways to provide sustainable and meaningful recommendations regarding activities that maintain health and prevent disease. We recommended physical activity in our previous article; should we, as physicians, spend time recommending volunteerism to our patients?
It is well known that the United States is facing an important demographic shift toward an aging population that will significantly impact our society. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. population aged 65 and older reached 55.8 million or 16.8% of the U.S. population in 2020. Of note, the population aged 65 and older grew nearly five times faster than the total population over 100 years from 1920 to 2020. Two factors contributing to this growth are the 77 million babies born during the “boom years” of 1946-1964 and the increased longevity that these citizens can expect to experience due to broad advances in medical care. While much attention has been focused on the economic challenges that our aging population will create for programs like Medicare and Social Security, more emphasis should be placed on exploring the positive impact that this experienced and gifted group can have on society through civic and volunteer engagement.
The Benefits of Volunteering
The health benefits of volunteerism have been formally studied, and the results have been replicated. To those who do not volunteer, older patients who volunteer regularly can expect to experience fewer physical limitations, lower rates of depression, improved overall sense of well-being, and decreased mortality. Functional MRI studies have confirmed that volunteering activates parts of the brain that help maintain cognitive function. Researchers wrote in Journals of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences and Journal of Health Psychology that patients who volunteer gain a greater sense of community and establish a social support network, thereby decreasing feelings of dependency and isolation. Meeting new people with a common purpose can be a fulfilling and fun way to connect with others and motivates older adults to get out of the home to help others who depend on them. In turn, these volunteers contribute their unique talents and life experiences for the betterment of the recipients. Hopefully, witnessing this altruism can motivate others to volunteer as well.
With increased attention focused on engaging older adults in preventive health activities and the above discussion that volunteering is essential to healthy aging, it is more important now than ever to counsel and empower patients to volunteer. Multiple studies found that the strength of primary care physicians’ recommendations is the most powerful predictor of exercise initiation and maintenance in older adults, the researchers wrote in Archives of Internal Medicine, Annals of Internal Medicine, and Journal of Aging and Physical Activity. This can also be true of volunteerism if presented as an easy-to-implement preventative health behavior.
