Rural seniors isolated: professor
70 per cent of people with disabilities say transportation needs are largely unmet
Thousands of seniors in small centres and rural areas around Edmonton live isolated lives, trapped in their homes with few transportation options, according to research done for the Capital Region Board.
University of Alberta professor Bonnie Dobbs found an even higher percentage of disabled people struggle to get out to see friends, which leads to higher rates of depression and other declines.
Previous Statistics Canada research has shown the dangers of leaving seniors with few transportation options, said Dobbs, who is also director of the U of A’s Medically At-Risk Driver Centre.
One study found 10 per cent of legally blind seniors admitted to driving during the previous month, as well as 27 per cent of those with cognitive impairments severe enough they can’t remember what they did the day before.
Her presentation Thursday sparked calls for action.
“We have a nunmet need,”Strathcon a County Mayor Roxanne Carr said. “Some of us could create a pilot project for our municipalities.”
Seniors and people with disabilities who can’t drive can often count on friends or family to get them to medical appointments or to get groceries once a month, but often they’re not getting out for social appointments or to participate in religious ceremonies, Dobbs said.
“Those other transportation needs are the ones that result in decreased quality of living,” Dobbs said.
Dobbs’s research was based on phone surveys with 413 people in Lamont County, Bruderheim and Redwater. She found more than 70 per cent of people with disabilities indicated their transportation needs were being met “not at all well.”
As well, 30 to 50 per cent of seniors and the adult children of seniors thought the needs of seniors in general are not well met. Previous research suggests that estimate can be taken as a proxy for the view of isolated seniors, who are very difficult to track down and survey.
“Certainly, the results are compelling,” she said.
Coun. Michael Walters, Edmonton’s representative on the Capital Region Board’s transit committee, said this research is one step toward evaluating the larger transit needs in the region.
Building consensus on this may be a first step to finding common ground on other regional transit issues, he said.
“We all recognize that seniors in every community need to be taken care of,” he said.