When the time comes to choose a retirement home, whether for personal planning or a senior relative, it can be both a common sense issue and an anxiety-causing one. On the one hand, the choice makes sense for providing a senior help when they can’t live safely on their own. On the other hand, it means a loss of personal and individual control, a reversion back to being cared for but also restricted to. The second part tends to cause a lot of arguments and can make relations between family, especially adult children and their parents rough for a while.
Focus on the Goal
Choosing a retirement home is about finding the best care possible for a senior. That comes with both living, transportation, monitoring, healthcare support and more. Each senior resident is different, and the right approach involves establishing a care plan with details in each aspect if it is applies. However, there can be a lot of challenges and with both the options available and cost variation, it’s fairly normal that finding the right home can be outright confusing.
Focusing on the selection goal starts with location. One of the biggest issues that both a senior and a family have is distance. The further the distance away, the more likely no one will visit, and that leaves things open for problems. Close proximity makes it easy to visit regularly, which both makes things easier for a senior feeling detached from the world in a retirement home and to keep an eye on their care as well. No one wants to be the family that finds out about problems after the fact and feels helpless because they were hundreds of miles away. So, close location should be a top priority, both for mental care as well as monitoring ease.
Visit and Inspect
If the facility is not one a visitor would want to live in, why consider it for a senior? Personal inspection of a facility is a must. And that means looking at more than just the quick sales tour provided by the facility’s owner and company. Insist on seeing the common areas, a typical room, the grounds, the kitchen and similar facilities. Go to the bathroom and notice the care of cleaning. Poor maintenance is going to show up quickly.
Consider the Amenities
Who wants to sit in a room all day and do nothing? A retirement home should be about socializing. Everyone there as a resident knows their years are short, and that can be depressing. So amenities, socialization, interaction with others and common connections make a huge difference in how comfortable residents will be.
Safety Features
Is the facility capable of quick response with medical care? Seniors fall down a lot, seizures and heart attacks are common as well. If the best the facility can offer is an attendant and call to the local hospital, look elsewhere.
Focus on the Basics
The selection process for a retirement home doesn’t need to be complicated. Focusing on key elements makes it a lot easier and gets to a short list quickly. Remember, if you wouldn’t want to live there, don’t put a relative in the same place.
