Planning For Senior Living Transition

Ageing is about change. When today’s baby boomer generation grew up, the average life expectancy in the US was just over 60 years old. Our senior population enjoys better health and is more knowledgeable about health than any previous generation. This has helped the generation set new records and establish new standards for longevity and senior lifestyle. Along with that longevity come emotional and physical realities that need the attention of our seniors and their offspring.

Ageing with purpose requires change. One of the more intimidating adaptions that today’s senior face is finding the correct living environment; one that will allow our seniors to thrive in a safe and manageable environment.

For this dilemma, advance planning is helpful. Usually, a child or friend needs to help seniors sort through the many independent, semi-dependent and assisted living options that exist today.

Guidelines For Making the Right Senior Living Choices

In order to ensue seniors are in the best, safest and most social environment, we must understand that one size does not fit all. The correct way to proceed is to analytically assess the senior’s lifestyle, health (a combination of physical and medical needs), financial capabilities as well as social and emotional needs.

Special considerations must be made when coupled seniors are at different stages of health. Most senior partners have very different health challenges. For example, one could show signs of dementia but be in excellent physical shape. The spouse could be fighting heart disease and be immobile but still quite alert. Obviously, both these spouses need different considerations and protections in the same residential environment. To this formula, the decision makers must add the prospects for the near-term and long-term future.

Lifestyle – One of the first considerations is how the senior will be transported to medical appointments, movies, sporting events or shopping centers. If the senior has lost or will lose the ability to drive, living accommodations with public or community transport is strongly recommended. Seniors thrive when they can experience life beyond the perimeter of a senior community. There are many lifestyle considerations including walking paths, fitness center access, Internet access, social meals and structure that come into play. Remember that seniors are more active and want to stay that way. This means seniors need to enjoy mental and physical stimulus.

Maintenance – Whichever senior living arrangements are selected, make sure there are provisions to keep the living quarters clean, healthy and safe. Whether the senior is living alone or with their spouse, maintenance inside and outside the residence can slip quickly. This can cause health and unnecessary risk of accident.

Social and Emotional Needs – Senior living accommodations can range from moderately expensive to very expensive. Involved parties must assess the senior’s financial capabilities in the present and going forward. If family members are willing to pitch in, this must be well planned with the realization that financial pictures often change unexpectedly. Understanding the senior’s financial capabilities is a task best evaluated by a responsible family member or professional in the field. Someone must become an expert on this topic which can include an analysis of the senior’s financial portfolio and an understanding of entitlements that can range from medical and prescription coverage to rent support or food provision.

One of the biggest challenges about planning the best living situation for seniors is engaging the seniors. This must be a joint decision. Be prepared because most seniors think they can manage independently for the rest of their lives. That includes driving. In reality, very few seniors can manage independently for long. Plan ahead and try to make the change a natural progression to a more accommodative, social and affordable lifestyle.

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Darlene Strand

Thank you for writing this article! I am one of many facing this time that is effecting me, now at age 67! Being home , retired at 65, has brought about ‘changes’ I found myself unaware and uncertain about. My head injury from my accident, job related before retiring, has made me more lost than I was. I have to relearn how to ‘drive’ again. Writing helps me to be stronger and gives me therapy for my mind, fingers, and hands to type what I can still remembering a good degree of happier moments in my past and loss of the’bad’ moments that make me feel sad and quilty about getting older. When I get more days without dizziness, I hope to check out the Senior Center and go on a Monorail or train trip with a group up coast to see a few famous places here in California, Huell Houser, talked about on his “California Gold” video shows!
Khalfan Khan

Whether you’re looking to live independently in a community of peers or move to an assisted living facility with access to additional support, there are now more options than ever for older adults looking for housing options beyond their long-time residences. However, myriad choices don’t necessarily make for an easy transition. Oftentimes, older adults must part with many years of living in former homes and navigate the complex emotions that often come with leaving meaningful and familiar things, places and neighbors behind.

Pamela Haskell, who has owned and operated senior living communities in Tucson, Arizona, for 20 years, says she’s seen many residents resist the transition. “Seniors don’t want to go—that’s the simplest explanation of the challenge,” she says. “They visualize themselves being able to live independently in their own home for the rest of their life. When that changes, nobody is happy about it.”

However, senior living communities can help integrate new residents, and loved ones and additional services designed to support older adults can further smooth the transition. By planning ahead and framing the move as something to look forward to rather than dread, older adults and their families can ensure a successful transition to a new way of life.

How to Make the Transition to Senior Living as Easy as Possible
Downsize Gradually
The majority of U.S. adults downsize their living spaces after retirement, especially if children have moved out and various elements of household upkeep—from cleaning to landscaping—become more difficult to maintain. But downsizing living spaces can be hard—sometimes stunningly hard—both for older adults making the transition and their families.

Deciding what to bring to a smaller living space and what must be left behind can prove as much an emotional challenge as a logistical one.

Haskell advises keeping it simple. “I have had residents try to bring their entire world with them,” she says. “A whole two- or three-bedroom apartment crammed into a [single] room doesn’t [work]. They really have to pay attention to the essentials. What is actually necessary?”

Older adults and their families can ease these challenges by starting the process far in advance and taking it slow. After putting so much thought and consideration into finding a new home, don’t let the contents of the previous one become an afterthought. Work collaboratively to determine which belongings are must-haves for the new space and discuss which family members might want to give other important keepsakes their next loving home. Also consider renting a nearby storage unit or donating certain items to organizations with causes you support.

Explore Communities Early
“Deciding in advance is by far the best thing you can do when you’re helping someone find an appropriate community,” says Haskell. “Maybe a third of the people that come and tour our facilities are looking for a future date. The rest are people in shock whose hospital case managers have told them, ‘Mom or Dad can never live at home again, and by the way, we’re releasing them tomorrow.’ Families come in and don’t really have the time to find the most appropriate community. It makes it hard for the loved one and the family to make adjustments.”

A move can be both practically and emotionally challenging, but a common sentiment among residents of senior living communities is that they wish they’d moved sooner. The best communities create an environment where finding new interests and pathways for engagement are the primary motivation for moving in the first place. Many older adults move into these communities well before they might rely on assistance with activities of daily living (ADLs). For those who want to engage with their new surroundings as much as possible and take full advantage of community programs while relatively unencumbered by health or mobility issues, moving sooner is better.

Even with services and in-home infrastructure to support aging in place, continuing to live at home into old age can place a burden on family members who struggle to fill certain gaps in caregiving that a senior living community could better address. Plus, remaining at home can exacerbate feelings of social isolation and loneliness in the older adult living there if they spend extensive periods of time alone.

“These discussions have to take place before people are in a crisis situation,” says Haskell. “Few people have the luck to be absolutely independent until they pass away.”

What’s more, many desired communities have lengthy waiting periods, so the sooner you tour options and get your name on waitlists, the better.

Value Mental Health as Much as Physical Well-Being
Oftentimes, the physical limitations that come with aging create equally consequential challenges for mental health. Changes in mobility, vision and hearing can create a dramatic shift in the ways a person experiences life, and some people accept and accommodate those changes more easily than others.

For this reason, Haskell says social activities are probably the most crucial aspect of coming into a community. “It’s a huge change to come back into a community,” she says. “The instinct is to isolate, but once [a resident] reengages, they can experience a much more fulfilling world.”
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