Senior citizens often live independently. The patients and their friends and families may also evaluate and consider different senior living settings. Individuals who read about assisted living organizations frequently decide that these communities will provide exactly the level of support that they’ll need.
People learning about nursing homes might believe that senior care always involves a clinical area of some kind. After getting more information about assisted living facilities, they’ll view their senior healthcare choices differently. The active residents in assisted living centers have suites or apartments. They’ll have access to their own individual kitchenettes and bathrooms.
Someone who stays at a nursing home will have an individual room that’s at least somewhat private. That room also might just be theirs. It won’t have a small kitchen or sitting room. However, nursing home rooms can still be spacious and comfortable.
Patients who are thinking about senior living spaces in the near future frequently want to belong to communities. Nursing home facilities and assisted living groups can both make that possible. Assisted living areas often have more entertainment options and events than most nursing homes, but it’s possible to socialize and regularly meet people at both kinds of senior living organizations.
Making the choice to move into an assisted living facility can certainly be a difficult one. After all, many people, even if they would benefit from living in assisted living apartments, do not feel that they are ready to give up independent living. But the majority of elderly people over the age of sixty-five fear more than anything else that they might someday become a burden to the loved ones in charge of their care. And moving into an assisted living facility can provide the solution to this – especially in cases of Alzheimer’s disease or other types of dementia.
And Alzheimer’s disease is all too common, one of the top ten leading causes of death in the United States alone at number six. And of all the top leading causes of death in the United States, Alzheimer’s disease is the only one that can’t be cured or prevented – or even slowed down. It is so prevalent among the elderly population that out of every three senior citizens that pass away, one dies from either Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia.
As Alzheimer’s progresses in stages, even those who have had early detection of dementia are likely to advance throughout the disease relatively rapidly. And as they progress, they tend to become less and less able to take care of themselves.
This is where assisted living facilities can play a huge and important role in the lives of not only dementia patients, but their families. Assisted living facilities such as Alzheimer care homes can provide the support and attention that many family members, though loving, are simply not able to give, due to time constraints and a lack of training in the field of dementia care. In fact, nearly half of all patients living in such a place get help with day-to-day activities, most commonly those of bathing and dressing. Assistance with moving around, eating, and using the bathroom is also available if need be.
Residents of such assisted living facilities or senior living homes are able to lead full and enriching lives as well. Because they become part of the community of the retirement home, many people find that they are actually busier once they move into a retirement home or community than they were when they were living on their own. Such facilities will also provide adequate nutrition in the form of three full meals a day in addition to snacks. With services such as laundry, maintenance, and transportation frequently provided at such assisted living facilities, many find that their quality of life significantly improves when they move to one.
For those who are struggling to manage chronic conditions – and many elderly people are managing more than one such condition – having access to medical counseling, medication management services, and the treatments they need can lift a huge weight off their shoulders. If an assisted living community provides anything at all it provides the support that the residents of such a community are in need of.
Though many people are initially hesitant to consider retirement or assisted living community as a viable option for their golden years, many find that they enjoy living in such a place immensely once they finally move there. Such communities can be hugely enriching, and the support and care that they provide can actually increase the independence of those who live there instead of letting it diminish. From patients struggling with dementia to those with physical ailments, an assisted living community can give them back a good deal of their quality of life.
