What is Assisted Living?
A lot of people think that assisted living means a big institution. In the old days, that’s what it was. What it is today is completely different. When you think about living at home, all of the comforts of home and there are other people in that home. One of the things about the way we do it in residential assisted living is it’s a community. It’s a group of 8, 10, to 12 seniors in a home with peers their own age, living in that home together.
Why you should consider Residential Assisted Living
If you’re at home and maybe a spouse has passed away, you’re alone. It gets lonely. Your kids can’t come visit every single day. They’re not living with you taking care of you either. So having a community of people to be with is incredibly important. It’s not just your physical health, it’s your mental health, your attitude. Residential assisted living looks like a home because it is a home. It may be in the same exact neighborhood the senior lives in now.
Assisted Living is for when somebody has an event, they move into assisted living after that event where they need additional help or monitoring. They need help with their medication, bathing, feeding or whatever it may be. They move there because they have to. And it’s a home setting and that’s specifically what we do with residential assisted living.
It’s not a nameless, faceless situation. It’s a home.
The caregivers know the seniors who are living in the home by name, they love them dearly, they love to be with them. And it can be a fun place to be. It’s not just people sitting around in wheelchairs and getting ready to die and pass away. It’s people who are there living out those last days and many times what the families find is when they move mom or dad into that assisted living home, they come back to life.
All of a sudden they are eating better, they’re getting sleep. The families come to visit and they have a whole new attitude. They now can be the sons, the daughters, the granddaughters and the grandsons again, not the caregivers.
How do we handle death in Assisted Living?
Let’s face it, we’re all going to pass away. The question is when, not if. The manager will see that and call the family. The family will come and they’ll spend the last few days and weeks with them, saying their goodbyes. And then in a very natural way, nine times out of 10, they pass away in the middle of the night. You understand that there’s more than being here on earth. There’s a lot more that’s coming ahead of us. The opportunity to share with other people during that time is incredibly powerful. To be able to care for them during that time is equally important. The families are thankful that we were there to take care of their family member all during that time.
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