Aging in a Perilous Time

July 30, 2023: What has COVID taught us about aging? Will our learnings make the next public health crisis easier on our most fragile citizens?

By November 2022, more than 5,000 Albertans had died of COVID-19, with people aged 60 and older accounting for 90 per cent of the deaths. In long-term care and retirement homes, Canada had the worst record for COVID-19 deaths among wealthy countries during the first year of the pandemic. More than 80 per cent of deaths occurred in these facilities, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information. And more people suffered the indirect impacts of COVID-19 such as depression and anxiety, food insecurity, loneliness and social isolation, according to the National Institute on Ageing.

Sherry Dahlke says these statistics can tell us a lot about aging. She is a U of A assistant nursing professor and researcher whose work is focused on ageism in the nursing care of older people. She says the pandemic highlighted that ageism is prevalent in our society. “In Canada, we think we have this wonderful system, but we are not immune from ageism and we are not putting the resources into care of older people," she said.

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