Five Reasons Aging in Place Might Be More Difficult for Your Senior

Your senior might have expressed a desire to age in place, but is that a practical answer for her? The answer might be no for some reasons that could surprise you.

Health Changes

Home Care Glenview, IL: Aging in Place

Your senior’s health affects every aspect of her life, especially her plans to age in place. If she’s facing health problems that are growing steadily worse, that can cause her to experience greater difficulties than she ever anticipated. Talk to your senior’s doctor about how her health can impact her plans. There may be more that she can do than she thinks.

She Doesn’t Drive Any Longer
Health affects so many things, including your senior’s ability to continue to drive. She may find that she’s unable to keep up with the physical demands of driving, her vision may change, or cognitive difficulties might make driving impossible. Regardless of the reason, your senior needs to have some alternatives to driving herself so that she’s not left at home constantly.

Housekeeping Challenges
Housekeeping challenges can also become a problem for your elderly family member. She may not have the energy to keep up with regular cleaning tasks, but that’s only part of the problem. There are repairs and maintenance your senior has to keep up with, too. She may already be outsourcing those tasks to other people, but she has to keep up with whether they’ve been done or not.

Isolation Becomes a Problem
Some of the issues your senior is facing can cause her to spend more and more time alone. She may not have visits as often from friends and family and if she no longer drives, that might mean that she doesn’t get out and about often at all. This is often how seniors wind up feeling forgotten and isolated, especially if the people who are emotionally closest to them live farther away.

Changes in Her External Environment
Neighborhoods change over time. People sell their homes and new families move in. Over a long period of time, your senior’s neighborhood might be markedly different from the neighborhood that she felt safest in. If she lives in an area where lots of people and businesses have moved out, that might mean that it’s time for her to do the same.

You can likely solve or correct some of these issues for your senior, but you might not be able to fix all of them on your own. Home care providers can take over many of these details for your elderly family member, leaving her to comfortably age in place.

Excerpt: Is your senior planning to age in place?

If you or an aging loved one are considering Home Care in Glenview, IL, contact the caring staff at Companion Services of America today at (847) 943-3786. Our home care service area includes Northbrook, Highland Park, Deerfield, Glenview, Buffalo Grove, Evanston, Des Plaines, Skokie, Lake Forest, Wilmette and the surrounding areas.

Jamie Shapiro