Retiring in style: new facilities can keep golden years untarnished.

AuthorError, Casey
PositionFocus

RETIREMENT: No job. No boss. No responsibilities -- just peace, quiet and freedom for the rest of your life. Right? That's what I thought, until I visited an elderly neighbor and spotted a pillow nestled coyly against the cushions of her sofa. Embroidered with shimmering silver and gold thread, it read: "Screw the golden years."

Seems living as a senior is not necessarily as golden as one might imagine. For starters, there's yard work, squeaks to suppress and prescriptions to fill. Even common activities like cooking and cleaning can become burdensome. What good is retirement if you can't enjoy it? When a senior can no longer comfortably live at home, what options are available? How do you choose? How do you ensure quality treatment; and how much does it all cost?

"The continuum of senior care has diversified dramatically over the last 10 to 15 years," says Cory F. Wolfenbarger, Wentworth Senior Living Services director of marketing. "In years past, some older adults opted to live in retirement communities that offered limited support services such as housekeeping, maintenance and limited meal services. However, if their health changed and they required assistance with activities of daily living, seniors generally moved to a nursing home."

Residential care facilities were really the first major advancements toward modem assisted living communities. "In fact," says Chantelle Knudson, director of public relations and marketing for Highland Cove Retirement Community, "retirement living and elderly care has greatly evolved since the days of our grandparents. It used to be that if you were elderly and needed care, you went to a nursing home, whether or not you needed the extent of care they offered. Today there are a plethora of options, ranging from independent to assisted living, from intermediate care to skilled nursing, allowing the elderly to maintain and increase dignity and independence and receive the proper level of care needed."

"Assisted living," adds Wolfenbarger, "is a vital piece of the new continuum-of-care that includes senior apartments, independent living communities, assisted living communities, special care communities (for those with Alzheimer's and related memory disorders), specialty hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, hospitals, personal care services agencies, home health agencies and hospice agencies."

It seems the later years of life need not be as tarnished as the pillow had suggested. Especially inspiring...

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