Have you ever thought who will help you when you reach your old age? Your friends or family will, but that will be for a short time. It is you who will have to plan for your old gage, a period of transition in the life which most of the human beings dread but cannot avoid at any cost.
You will need help in almost every aspect and activity of your life once you reach 65 years and above. If you continue to live well beyond 70 or 75, then these needs will be even more profound. You will need help in:
- Transportation
- Medication
- Buying groceries and other essentials
- Doctor visits
- Treatment and aftercare
- Cooking and eating
- Run different small and big errands
- Bathing and dressing or
- Simply getting out of the house and even
- Making a call when you are in distress or experienced a fall.
In fact, you will need help in all sorts of other different services that you take for granted today. Therefore, it requires some thought about your transition and plan accordingly. This will ensure that you are not forced to live in an isolated condition without any contacts with your near and dear ones.
Helps to seek
However, do not get disheartened when you want to age in place because there are thousands of seniors out there who are doing so in their place happily and effectively. How? With the help of others.
- There are different home care agencies out there to help them out in these situations.
- There are also different public services as well that will help you as well.
- You may even find a non-profit group if you get in touch with the bucks county area agency on agingthat may help you out.
- There are also some specific communities that have different and wide networks in place to help the older citizens in such situations.
With their useful and carefully planned customized services, these communities, agencies and public services organizations will help you a great deal in setting up a suitable environment to age in your place and help you to meet with all your daily as well as occasional needs.
Use of innovative concepts
these home care agencies and organizations will help you to use innovative concepts as they implement them in different localities. These concepts include the ‘village’ concept as well as the Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities, or NORCs.
- Though the working process and details of these home care agencies may vary, but normally the non-profit groups in this regard assist as a clearinghouse to match different home care service providers to those seniors who need them and their services.
- The primary idea behind providing these services is to provide you with the benefits of your retirement community without having to leave your place to age.
However, all of them will charge specific fees for their services that may also vary according to the working policy and business principle of these agencies, profit or non-profit.
Planning your transition
When you plan for your transition, you will need to consider several factors and aspects to make your transition process and the ideal of aging in your place a success. The basic and probably the most important things to consider are that:
- You will need to have one or more people around you whom you can trust and
- You will need people who are experts in monitoring your quality of life.
Ideally, these should be the people around you who will listen to you and tell you when exactly living in your home and on your own will reduce the quality of your life and when you should seriously consider thinking about an alternative arrangement for aging happily and successfully.
Help from others available
It is also important for you to know that there may be some specific times when older people often reach to a point when they can stay and age in their own homes with a little bit of help from others. The specific tasks that need some amount of assistance from others include:
- Cleaning
- Preparing meals
- Transportation and other homemaking and several other chores.
At this age and time people suffer from different issues that warrants for such aides. These issues include:
- Reduced vision
- Declining mobility
- Aching joints
- Constant pains and other physical and medical issues.
All these conditions will take its toll on your activities and make it difficult for you to perform several other jobs such as:
- Dealing with your mails
- Reading and writing
- Payingyour bills and even
- Going for a walk in the evening or morning safely.
In such situations you can hire services that are commonly known as homemaking or companion services and are available in different areas. They will help you out in performing these types of tasks of course for a fee.
These agencies and caregivers will also help you with some additional services such as:
- Going for your doctor appointments
- Reminding you to take your medications and other similar tasks.
You may also get help from a visiting nurse or any home health aide that will help you in the medical care and attention that you may need from time to time by staying with you in your home.
They will help you in a great way to re-evaluate your situation on a regular basis and let you know immediately when the tipping point approaches.
Maintain social connections
Well, cost is not always the most important factor to determine whether you will age in place or move in to an assisted living facility. Perhaps the most important factor to ensure that you age well is to have a stable and extended social interaction and connections. Therefore, make sure that you maintain your social connections and build on your existing networks.
Several researches show that the most significant problem for older Americans is their social isolation. They lack personal contact and connections that inevitably leads to loneliness and depression.
Therefore, make sure that you are socially active to be happier, healthier and age just as the way you should.
