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A great deal of what goes wrong for older people happens out of sight: someone who has not spoken to anyone for a week, a fall nobody sees, a carer close to breaking point, a pension spent by someone else. The good news in the research is that some of the most effective help is low-tech and cheap. The less comfortable news is that several popular ideas have weak evidence behind them.

Common beliefs, and what the evidence says

What older people need, stage by stage

Needs change across later life. The risks below are the ones the evidence ties most closely to each stage, with the kind of help that addresses them.

Stage	The main risk	Help with good evidence	Causes that work on it
Still independent	Isolation and loneliness	Regular contact from the same person; group activity with a purpose	Aging in Place Support Program, Community Elder Visits Network
Becoming frailer	Falls; losing access to shops and services	Balance exercise; home safety changes and mobility aids; transport	Rural Isolation Relief Fund, Rural Aged Care Fund
Needing care	Carer burnout; abuse; gaps in paid care	Structured support for family carers; vetted home visits	Aging in Place Support Fund, Rural Elder Care Cooperative
In a crisis	Being missed in heat, cold or conflict	Lists of who lives alone; check-ins; supply deliveries	Frontline Village Elder Support Fund, Pensioner Heating Assistance Fund

Balance classes have the strongest evidence against falls; the causes in that row fund the other parts of the picture: transport, check-ins, mobility aids and home safety equipment.

Loneliness is a health problem, not just a sad one

WHO’s Commission on Social Connection reported in 2025 that loneliness is linked to about 871,000 deaths a year, and that up to one in three older people are socially isolated. The programmes most likely to help share a few features: contact is regular (weekly or more), the older person helps set the schedule, volunteers are trained, and the same caller or visitor keeps coming back. Benefits from group activities often fade when the activity stops, which is a reason to favour support that lasts.

This is also something anyone can do. The trial above used briefly trained young volunteers making ten-minute calls, and the main skill was listening.

Supporting the people who do most of the caring

About 57 million people were living with dementia in 2021, with nearly 10 million new cases a year, according to WHO. Much of their care is unpaid: informal care accounts for about half of dementia’s global cost, and family carers provide an average of about five hours of care and supervision a day, and women provide around 70% of those hours. Programmes that support the carer, through coping skills, planning, respite and contact with other carers, protect both people. WHO offers a free online skills programme for carers called iSupport.

Why older people are so often missed in emergencies

Older people die at far higher rates than their share of the population when disaster strikes. People aged 65 and over accounted for 56% of the deaths in the three Japanese prefectures hit hardest by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. In Europe’s 2022 summer heat, more than 61,000 people died from heat-related causes, over half of them aged 80 or more (Nature Medicine, 2023). In the first year of the full-scale war in Ukraine, people over 60 made up almost a third of civilian deaths, while being about a quarter of the population (UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission).

Reduced mobility, chronic illness and living alone all play a part, and many older people cannot or will not leave. Much of the protective work is unglamorous: knowing who lives alone, calling before and during heatwaves or cold snaps, bringing food and medicine to people who stay behind, and providing walkers, glasses and hearing aids so people can move. Ask an emergency charity whether it records who it helps by age and disability.

Money in later life

Pensions are the foundation of income in old age, and in many poorer countries large numbers of older people have none or one too small to live on. Social pensions also reach the rest of the household: in South Africa, girls living with a grandparent who received the state pension were measurably taller, which researchers linked to better nutrition. In richer countries, one of the most practical forms of help is a benefits check, because many pensioners do not claim support they are entitled to. The Winter Fuel Support Trust and France’s Pensioner Heating Assistance Fund both help people meet heating costs in winter.

What safeguarding should look like

Any organization that sends people into older people’s homes is trusted with someone at risk. WHO lists dependence on others, poor health, cognitive impairment and low income among the risk factors for abuse. Before you give, check that the organization can answer yes to these:

Every Elderly Care cause we list

Each cause names the organization that receives the grants and when our team last verified it. Open a cause to see what it pays for, or donate directly.

Common questions

Can I support a specific older person?

No. Our elderly care causes fund programmes such as home visits, food and supply deliveries, transport, mobile care and heating help, which support many people. That also protects older people’s privacy and safety.

Do these causes cover dementia?

Several reach people living with dementia and their families through home visits and caregiving support. For research into dementia and other diseases, see the medical research causes on our All causes page.

Why do so many causes focus on rural villages?

In many countries younger people have moved to cities or abroad, leaving older relatives in villages where shops, clinics and transport have closed. Isolation and distance from services are the problems these programmes address.