Ageing Alone: What Older People Need Beyond Food

When people picture an older person in difficulty, they usually picture hunger. Food matters, and it is often not the thing that is hardest.

Caring for the elderly is part of what Lift A Life Foundation is registered to do, and the households we visit have taught us that the shortages are rarely only material.

What older people living alone actually run short of

Conversation. Days pass without anyone speaking to them. It is not sentimental to call this a need; isolation is associated with worse health outcomes and faster decline. A visit is one of the cheapest interventions available and one of the most effective.

Someone to notice. The danger of living alone is not only what happens, but that nobody knows it happened. A fall, a fever, a week without eating properly. Regular contact is the mechanism by which small problems get caught while they are still small.

Help with what has become difficult. Fetching water. Carrying anything. Climbing a step. Tasks that were ordinary five years ago and are now the whole day.

Medication that runs out quietly. Long-term conditions need repeat prescriptions. When money is short, medication is often the first thing quietly dropped, because the effect of stopping is not immediate.

Being taken seriously. Older people are frequently spoken about rather than to, including in clinics. Having someone present who insists they are addressed directly changes the quality of care they receive.

Grandparents raising grandchildren

A particular household keeps appearing in this work: an older woman raising several grandchildren after their parents have died or gone to look for work.

She is carrying two burdens at once. She is old enough to need care herself and is instead providing it, often on no income beyond occasional help. The children are frequently vulnerable in the formal sense, and she may not know that anything exists for them.

These households sit precisely where our registered activities meet: orphans and vulnerable children, and the elderly, in one home. They are also easy to miss, because from outside it simply looks like a family.

Practical things that help

Visit on a schedule. The same day each week or month. Predictability is the point. It creates something to look forward to and a reliable moment when problems get noticed.

Bring what is heavy. Water, flour, charcoal, anything bulky. Carrying is often the specific thing that has become impossible.

Ask about medication directly. "Have you been able to get your tablets?" is a more useful question than "how are you", which will usually be answered with "fine".

Check the practical hazards. Poor lighting, a loose step, no way to call for help. Small fixes prevent the falls that change everything.

Sit down. Standing in a doorway signals that you are leaving. Sitting says you have time, and it is when people actually tell you what is wrong.

Ask what they want, not what you assume. Older people are used to being decided for. Asking restores something.

What exists, and why people miss it

Kenya operates support programmes for older persons, and county social services offices hold information about what is available locally. Health facilities have social work departments that many families never think to ask for.

The reason support goes unclaimed is rarely that people are unwilling. It is that the person who qualifies does not know it exists, cannot manage the paperwork, or has no way to travel to the office that handles it. That gap is exactly what advocacy means in practice: not speeches, but somebody following the form through to the end.

Dignity in old age

There is a way of helping older people that quietly diminishes them: deciding for them, talking over them, treating help as something done to rather than with.

The households we visit are led by people who raised families, ran farms and businesses, and know their own situation better than any visitor. Age has not removed their judgement. Where we get this right, we are guests being helpful. Where we get it wrong, we are managing someone, and they feel it.

If you know a household like this

You do not need us to start visiting. But if there is an older person in Ruiru or the surrounding communities who is struggling and you are not sure what to do, tell us. Part of what we do is knowing which door to knock on, and part of it is simply turning up.