Old couples' health risks 'tied'

The illness, hospitalisation and death of one partner can harm the well-being of the other, US researchers have said.

A nine-year study of 518,240 elderly couples found one partner dying or going into hospital raised the risk of the other dying within 30 days.

A husband's death risk rose 53% within 30 days of a wife dying, while a wife's mortality risk rose 61%, said the New England Journal of Medicine study.

But the study also found different diseases had different impacts.

For example, the hospitalisation of a wife for colon cancer or lung cancer had no effect on the husband, but with dementia, the death risk rose 22%, they found.



Similar effects were seen in women whose husbands were hospitalised, the researchers said.

If a wife was hospitalised with heart disease, her husband's risk of death was 12% higher than it would be if the wife was not sick at all.

Overall men had a 21% higher risk of death when their wife died compared with a 17% increase for a wife after her husband's death - the team termed the phenomenon the "widower effect".

The researchers from Harvard Medical School and the University of Pennsylvania studied the effects of illness in one spouse on the risk of illness in the other partner.

They recruited more than a million people in couples between the ages of 65 and 98.

During the nine-year study period 74% of husbands and 67% of wives were hospitalised at least once, while half of husbands and one in three wives died.


Stress and support

Nicholas Christakis, professor of Health Care Policy at Harvard University, said results showed that when a spouse is hospitalised, the partner's risk of death increased significantly and remained higher for up to two years.

But the greatest period of risk was within 30 days of a spouse's hospitalization or death, he said.

Over this time frame, hospitalisation in a spouse could confer to a partner almost as much risk of dying as the actual death of a spouse, he added.

Spousal illness or death may impose stress on a partner or deprive a partner of social, emotional, economic, or other practical support, Professor Christakis explained.

"When a spouse falls ill or dies, partners may increase harmful behaviour, such as drinking.



"Stress and lack of social support may also adversely affect immunologic measures [the immune system], so spousal hospitalisation may have physiological effects on partners," he added.

Alzheimer's Society chief executive Neil Hunt said the study highlighted the huge impact of caring for a loved one with dementia.

"Carers of people with dementia are subject to huge emotional and physical hardships which can compound illnesses, often more so than carers of other older people.

"It is important that carers receive appropriate practical and financial support to help deal with the strain of caring."

The research was sponsored by the National Institute of Ageing, a division on the US-based National Institutes of Health.