Aging in place

Aging in place

Aging in place is a grow­ing desire for seniors and baby boomers.


On these pages you can read more about the ideas and prin­ci­ples that SRI at Home is founded on.

This is some of what Wikipedia has to say about aging in place:

Aging in place is the abil­ity to live in one’s own home – wher­ever that might be – for as long as con­fi­dently and com­fort­ably pos­si­ble. Liv­abil­ity can be extended through the incor­po­ra­tion of uni­ver­sal design prin­ci­ples, tele­care and other assis­tive technologies.

These tech­nolo­gies also span cat­e­gories of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and engage­ment, health and well­ness, home safety and secu­rity, and learn­ing and contribution.

The Jour­nal of Hous­ing for the Elderly states that aging in place is not hav­ing to move from one’s present res­i­dence in order to secure nec­es­sary sup­port ser­vices in response to chang­ing needs. Aging in Place has grown in pop­u­lar­ity and cel­e­brated by the National Aging in Place Week and the National Aging in Place Coun­cil that pro­motes the pos­i­tive out­comes of seniors hav­ing a choice in their care and liv­ing arrangements.

There are now Cer­ti­fied Aging-​​in-​​Place Spe­cial­ist (CAPS) spe­cial­ists to fill the grow­ing need in this ser­vice model for seniors. Com­mu­ni­ties are now fully engaged and com­mit­ted to explor­ing ways to bet­ter serve seniors by devel­op­ing action plans that address the future needs and ensure that the ser­vices are in place for seniors.

Within geron­tol­ogy, soci­ol­ogy and anthro­pol­ogy, aging-​​in-​​place is a con­struct described as “a com­plex set of processes that is part of the uni­ver­sal and ongo­ing emer­gence of the person–place whole, and the cre­ative social effort to rein­te­grate the whole in a mean­ing­ful way when prob­lems arise, com­pounded by an older adult’s evolv­ing sit­u­a­tion.” (Cutchin 2003)

His­tor­i­cally, Aging in Place Ini­tia­tive referred to mul­ti­ple level of ser­vices within one campus/​senior community.

  • Inde­pen­dent Living
  • Assisted liv­ing
  • Alzheimer’s care
  • Skilled Nurs­ing Facil­ity (SNF) /​Nursing home

The main focus implied not hav­ing to move from place to place, and being famil­iar with the com­mu­nity, allow­ing the indi­vid­ual to “age in place.” All the hous­ing lev­els are fit­ted with all the ADA require­ments, call but­tons and high speed cable.

Aging in Place should reduce forced relo­ca­tion to a dif­fer­ent liv­ing arrange­ment (and some­times, trans­fer trauma also known as relo­ca­tion stress syn­drome) and pro­duce more favor­able outcomes.[12]

Aging in Place Ini­tia­tives Worldwide

In Canada

In Ontario, Canada, Aging in Place is known as Aging at Home, and has received con­sid­er­able finan­cial sup­port from the Min­istry of Health and Long Term Care.

In United States

Accord­ing to the United States Cen­sus, there will be a spike in the age 60+ pop­u­la­tion from 43,043,000 in 2005 to 73,769,000 in 2020, an absolute increase of 21 percent.

Books

Robin Means, Sally Richards and Ran­dall Smith (2008): Com­mu­nity Care: Pol­icy and Prac­tice, Pal­grave MacMil­lan. ISBN 0230006744

Dr. Mar­ion Somers: Elder Care Made Eas­ier: 10 Steps to Help You Care for an Aging Loved One, Addi­cus Books, 2006. ISBN 1886039801