Wednesday 19 July 2017


Senior Living Facilities for Your Parents. 
                                                                                           Soumya Nair

The dramatic growth and development of the senior housing business and the recent trend of few corporates flurried into this sector without much homework made me think of introducing the senior living options.

Elders need love, care and attention just as a child requires. But, due to the modern day living conditions, it becomes difficult for the family members to make adjustments amongst themselves. Also, caring for the elderly is a bit grueling and tricky. Depending upon their physical status, most infirm elders need professional help or nursing care round the clock. Fortunately, there are elder care homes that provide care and protection to senior citizens who are vulnerable and need help. Some of the important senior care services are:

Care at home:
Not all elders are interested in moving out of their houses in old age. They prefer to stay in the familiar environment of home and love staying among the memories they built there over the years. Also, moving to new unfamiliar setting is something they dread, due to poor health or financial restrictions. For such people care at home is the best and we call it ‘as ageing in place’. Lot of home care agencies operate in almost all cities and have programs to provide health care assistance to those elderly people who need assistance at home. But the crux of the matter is how qualified and experienced are these caregivers. You need to evaluate the competency and practices of these agencies before you hire someone.

Senior citizen homes:
Old age homes bring an aversion to many people because in earlier days, it is synonym of destitute home. Over the past couple of years, this misconception changed after the existence of well-run senior citizen homes. Today many people opt on their own volition to spend their twilight years in a senior citizens home.  With the growing age, people are not able to do all of their daily chores, especially those related to outdoors, on their own. They need help in buying groceries or for carrying out the banking procedures. Public dealings of various kinds require agility of mind which fades away with age. Thus, residences with assisted living facility help elder citizen live on their own and also provide assistance wherever required.

Retirement living:
There comes a stage in life when the people feel like giving complete time to themselves and to leave the hustle and bustle of city life. They do not feel like staying bonded or burdened with family responsibilities. The period of life after work is the time when they can pursue what they actually loved but could not do so due to family obligations. So, for such group of people, there is an option of independent living too. Separate apartments, fully furnished in all possible ways, with home assistants are designed to suit the lifestyle of elderly people and on a meager rent, senior citizens can choose to stay there for as much time as desired. So many such facilities are available in all our cities. Here the promoters are not providing any care.

Care Home:
Care homes provide with intensive nursing care to patients who need care and maintenance.  This is an ideal option for highly dependent patients. Few of the patients warrant more professional care and a team work which cannot be provided in other settings. For example, People suffering from acute dementia, Alzheimer's disease or critical ailments like cancer and stroke require 24 by 7 support. Thus, these care homes are good option for keeping highly dependent elderly people.


            What sort of setting is suitable depends on the patient’s condition and the care involved as well as on many other factors. Foremost is the patient’s condition. Then comes family dynamics. Lastly, the financial aspects. Many chronic conditions and thereby interventions, cannot be managed in a home setting. If opt for a home setting as a convenience, then it can result in in inferior care. Resulting in more complications which could have been avoidable. Mostly patient’s with multiple chronicity need close monitoring and care and is mostly possible in a care home. Before selecting the care setting it is important to approach a social gerontology expert for a counseling session where he can guide you through the various care settings.

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