While Moving Can be Difficult, Senior Living Centers Improve Quality of Life
The decision to move to a senior living facility is an emotional one. Generally it involves moving from a home where one has lived for years, even decades. Often, this is the same home where children were raised, so that the entire family has an emotional attachment to the home. Friends, neighbors, and family are often close to the home, which can make it seem like you are leaving people behind, instead of just moving. Moreover, because senior living facilities are smaller than the traditional single-family home, the move to senior living often requires downsizing possessions, which can be difficult for an entire family. Yet, despite these difficulties, seniors who have made the transition from single family homes to senior living facilities report an improvement in their quality of life. To understand why, it is important to understand the advantages that a senior living facility offers for its residents.
- Reduced maintenance. Owning a home is extremely maintenance intensive. Yard work, weatherizing, shoveling the walk when it snows, replacing air filters, replacing light bulbs, fixing plumbing; the list of maintenance in a home is never-ending. This is not a problem when people are younger, but as people age, even simple tasks like changing an air filter can become difficult. Furthermore, these are not tasks that are considered part of daily living; a person who is no longer confident climbing up on a step stool to change a light bulb is not someone who needs assisted living, but is someone who needs a little assistance. Senior living facilities provide this assistance. Ground and building maintenance become the job of the facility, so that you get to continue living in a gorgeous, well-tended property, without the responsibility of the constant upkeep that requires.
- Reduced cleaning obligations. A smaller home means a smaller area to clean. Oftentimes seniors are living in homes where they raised kids, and needed a much larger amount of space than one or two people require. Downsizing automatically reduces the daily cleaning requirements. Moving into a senior living environment, where the buildings have been designed in order to facilitate movement and make life easier, makes it that much easier to keep you home neat and tidy. Of course, you can also choose housekeeping services, to completely eliminate this burden.
- Reduced loneliness and boredom. Many people who have aged in place begin to experience isolation. Friends move away or begin to die, and a senior may suddenly find that he or she only knows a few people in the neighborhood, and that differing life stages makes it difficult to make new friendships. At a senior living community, residents get to meet people of all different types and with all different interests, but all at the same stage in life.
