Growing old isn’t easy. There are so many hardships associated with advancing into your golden years. One endemic hardship is the need for a bit extra care as you reach elder status. The body and mind naturally find it harder to sustain themselves due to the erosion of the caps on the end of each DNA strand. Many people also suffer from aging or neurological conditions in old age that necessitate a move into some supportive accommodation. This is a natural part of aging.
Actually choosing a place to settle down in old age is notoriously very hard. This is perfectly understandable: after all it tends to be quite a large decision. It can be tricky to identify what you actually want from a senior living community. Of course, every person wants something at least slightly different. Here are some general features you should look for in a senior living community. You might have priorities not listed here: a religious or professional retirement group for instance.
Community
According Bel Air assisted living providers Brightview, community is one of the most important considerations that a person can take into account when trying to decide where they should settle in their golden years. Isolation is never a pleasant feeling. Human beings are extremely social beings. We find ourselves in the reactions we have to other people. A human being without a community is a rather lost being indeed.
There are all sorts of unique communities contained within senior living homes. You’ll need to make lots of visits and talk to lots of your peers before you can make an educated guess about the people you want to live with. Never move into a senior living community where people find themselves cut off and under stimulated.
Care
Real care is not easy to come by, but it is easy to gauge. Staff at senior living communities need to have enough time to give each resident their full attention. Staff need to be treated well by management so that they can really care for seniors’ needs without rushing or patronising them. Make sure that you ask people staying in a community how good they think the care is when you visit.
Independence
Although senior living communities might provide residents with care and structure, they should not inhibit their freedom if they are capable of exercising it safely. Seniors need to be able to have a power of agency over how much independence they have in a community. If staff respect their wishes and facilitate their desires then they are doing a great job.
Contact
A senior living community should not be a closed shop. Family and friends should be able to contact and be contacted by residents. During the COVID-19 pandemic, physical visits by family members have not always been possible. The best senior living communities have helped residents overcome this by offering help with videoconferencing software so that family and friends can virtually visit their loved one.
Luxury
You deserve luxury! Not all senior living communities have the same standards. There are some bad eggs out there looking to save cash by fitting out their communities with cut rate furniture, technology, catering and homewares. You’ll know pretty quickly how luxuriously residents are treated when you visit a living space.
Peace
Sometimes all you want is a bit of privacy – time to contemplate your long life, to think of your friends and loved ones and to read, write and take in a movie. Peace can be pretty hard to come by in a communal environment. The best senior living communities offer residents the opportunity to live in self-contained apartments with lots of space and privacy.
