Frederic D. Zeman

The aged recluse--an exploratory study with particular reference to community responsibility.

Abstract 1. 1. The characteristics of the aged recluse are described on the basis of 105 cases reported with varying degrees of completeness by newspapers in the New York City metropolitan area. 2. 2. The limitations of this method of case finding are discussed, but enough factual material has been collected to emphasize the social amd medical implications of this extreme type of aberrant behavior and to generate a typology of reclusiveness which consists in differentiating absolute and partial, as well as joint, reclusiveness. Suggestions are made for future methods of study and the value of more accurate information on incidence, as well as more intensive study along social, medical, and psychiatric lines, has been emphasized. 3. 3. The complex aspects of community responsibility are outlined with reference to dangers to the individuals themselves, but more importantly to the community as a whole. Many of these recluses are harmless, while others constitute potential menaces to public health in the form of fire and explosion hazards, breeding places for vermin, unregulated mental disease, in resisting cooperation with community agencies, and in offering opportunities for criminals who expect all old people living alone to have large sums of money concealed. 4. 4. In view of the increasing numbers of old people living alone, unsupervised and unprotected, further studies should alert community health and welfare agencies to the problems posed and should help to develop policies and to delimit responsibilities.