Isolation

Word of warning - this may be emotional for both of us.

One of the unspoken principles of this course is that we are social beings.  Most of us thrive in a social environment.  And social media has been working to keep some of us socialized because we cannot socialize in person.  My pastor has called it physically distance but spiritually close.  But what is the cost of this enforce isolation on those who cannot use social media to fulfill their need to socialize? I present two cases:

My father suffered from Parkinson's for the last four years, a degenerative disease that normally is a slow progression of loss of both physical and cognitive abilities.  In his case, I visited with him three times a week, taking him for a long walk, then sitting with him and either talking or simply asking him trivia questions that push him to use both recall and logic.  During that time, there was a very slow progression of the disease, but not too bad.  Then the quarantine hit and his living facility shut down all visits from family.  In about 100 days, he went from walking with a walker and minimal daily assistance to multiple falls, restriction to a wheel chair, and needing help with nearly all routine daily activities.  When he actually caught the virus and went to the hospital, they thought he also had dementia.  Although the cause of death was technically pneumonia cause by Covid, I atribute it as much to the isolation.

A man I work with served in the United States Marine Corp for 30 years, then retired to work for the Navy training sailors to use small arms, then developing and directing such training efforts.  He is what I would call computer functional; he can use some technology but learning new skills or applications is difficult.  With the quarantine protocols in place, we are working from our homes using whatever connection we have to our servers and email.  Well, his connection and computer is not able to constantly see connect to the servers and the normal applications we use to conduct daily work functions.  He can connect to our email through the external connection.  His response has been to drink...and last week he had to be taken to the hospital by one of our team.  His blood pressure was way high and he was incoherent.  After getting his BP under control, he has been moved to the psychiatric area for further treatment.  Without socialization and daily interaction, he has taken a different route.

As we discuss letting our schools reopen, we need to consider what the isolation is doing to younger children who do not have the option to socialize via media as teen and adults.  What is the impact of that on their mental development.  I have no answers but it is a major factor that must be considered.