Understanding Why Your Relatives Want To Age At Home

You may sometimes wonder why your aging loved ones are being stubborn when it comes to wanting to age in place. When you consider the options available to your relatives as they age it simply seems easier to move them to assisted living than take care of the maintenance and upkeep on the family home. Many assisted living communities offer a space for home-cooked meals, both on-site and off-site activities, day trips and other luxuries and amenities that aren’t available to many people who are living in their own home.

In some cases, it may be difficult to convince your parents that moving into an assisted living facility is a great decision. If you feel strongly that they need to move to a facility with full-time care, consider these five reasons why your elderly loved ones may want to remain in their own homes:

• There truly is no place like home. Many people, especially the elderly, have a hard time with change and uprooting their lives from a home that they’ve lived in for decades. They’re comfortable in their own home and it’s a difficult change. They may have dreamed of turning the home over to the children.
• If they’re involved in the community, they may be afraid they’ll lose touch. If your parents have lived in one place for many years, they’ve likely developed friendships with neighbors and even with those who work at the local grocery stores.
• They may fear loss of freedom. Many individuals believe that if they move into an assisted living facility that they will have to give up all of their personal freedoms. Sleeping, eating and personal entertainment patterns are different for every person, and your aging relatives can maintain those even if they move into an assisted living facility.
• Personalized care can be brought into the home. You can certainly hire a home healthcare aide to come in and visit with your relatives and make certain they are being well taken care of. If you hire an aide to come to the house, they may feel they’re getting more personalized care than they would if they went to a facility.
• Technology makes aging in place more of a possibility. When you consider the cast of resources available to seniors, staying in the family home seems more plausible.
• You can equip your parent’s house with medical alert system to make staying in the family home more viable. A home medical alert system offers peace of mind for both you and your parents.

Work with your parents and see if you can come to a compromise as it relates to aging in place.