Activity Centers

I suspect that places that care for older people have so many activities in order to keep their minds and bodies active and healthy, as I was discussing last week.  Getting out and being with others is a good way to ward off depression, which often sets in to aging minds.  Even if that "out" is just out of your room and down to the dining room.

I've often thought though, one of the root problems with moving to a senior facility is timing.   (Money being an obvious problem too.)  Money you either have or you don't and you look for something in your budget.  But there is no budget for when.

When my mother wasn't joking about living 6 months of the year with each daughter, she always said she didn't want to be a burden on her children.  She said numerous times as I was growing through my teens and early adult years that we should just "put her in a home".  But, when it came down to it, she resented it.  She didn't think the timing was right and she sure didn't appreciate the concept of being "put in a home",  regardless of her numerous references to it through the years.

Now-a-days it seems almost a given that anyone who lives past 65 will start to have diminished mental capacity.  I've observed it is a very fine line between being mentally able to recognize that a senior facility would be a good place for you and actually needing one but being so mentally deficient that you don't think you need it.  In the people I've watched go through this process it seems to flip like a light switch.  One day they are fine enough to not need a facility and the next they really need it but are adamant that they don't.  And moving them in a diminished mental state is SO MUCH HARDER than if they had moved in willingly and got used to their surroundings with all their brain cells active.

If I continue to operate under the idea that receiving an expiration date was just meant to shake me up and get me to accomplish things, then that would lead to, some years from now, identifying a retirement home and moving in when I am still completely healthy.  I've heard there are some facilities that have different stages of care - from retirement to assisted to nursing.  We'll see, if I get past 7/12/17 maybe I'll set up a long-term care account for a start.