Beeson Scholar Dr. Dong's Study on Self-Neglect in Older Adults in NY Times
Dr. XinQi Dong--a Beeson Scholar, Health and Aging Policy Fellow, and former trainee at the Yale University’s Hartford Center of Excellence (CoE)--has studied self-neglect in thousands of older adults in three Chicago neighborhoods since 1993. The New York Times recently highlighted Dr. Dong and colleagues' work, published in the New Old Age Blog on July 10, 2013. With self-neglect accounting for nearly 40 percent of all cases of elderly abuse or neglect, what was once considered simple cases of eccentricity is now viewed by researchers as telling signs of underlying medical and mental health issues in elderly individuals. With the growing literature on the subject in the last decade, more and more experts now consider self-neglect a geriatric symptom, much like frailty or delirium.
With self-neglect accounting for nearly 40 percent of all cases of elderly abuse or neglect, what was once considered simple cases of eccentricity is now viewed by researchers as telling signs of underlying medical and mental health issues in elderly individuals. With the growing literature on the subject in the last decade, more and more experts now consider self-neglect a geriatric symptom, much like frailty or delirium.
Dr. XinQi Dong--a Beeson Scholar, Health and Aging Policy Fellow, and former trainee at the Yale University’s Hartford Center of Excellence (CoE)--has studied self-neglect in thousands of older adults in three Chicago neighborhoods since 1993. In the 2009 study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr. Dong and his fellow researchers found that elderly individuals who had been reported for self-neglect were six times as likely to die in a given year than elderly individuals without the symptom. Given this new understanding of self-neglect, doctors are now starting to treat the underlying symptoms of self-neglect.
Read the full New York Times article, published on July 10, 2013, here.
