It’s like playing the stock market – hang on, hang in, patience… jump! Knowing when to leave your home to downsize or to move to a retirement or assisted-living environment is a delicate balancing act – one that involves good timing, honest assessments and some exquisite luck. Some get the timing just right and reap the rewards on both sides of the move. For too many, the bubble bursts, the bottom falls out, and they are left scrambling and wishing they’d made the move sooner.
If one can make a transition to a new living environment while everything else in their life remains relatively unchanged, the outcomes are generally positive.
“Staying at home is a wonderful gift if it’s safe and something that families are able to afford,” says Lesley Sikorski, Director of Marketing & Community Relations at Trillium Communities in Victoria. “But one of the discussions I have with families who find themselves faced with the predicament – do we keep mom home a bit longer, or should we move her now while she’s still healthy – is that if the loved one/parent is able to make the move when they still have some of their independence, whether that be their mobility, their cognition or transitioning from the familiarity of their own home, we see them settle into their new environment a lot faster.”
Change is good, but seldom easy. What bigger change than, as a senior, packing up and leaving a home you may have spent your entire adult life in? Maybe the transition for a teenager from home to school away from home is a similar shift. But at least they’ve got Friday’s kegger and a trip home at Thanksgiving to lessen the blow. Still, good will come from the change. Why such resistance?
“I feel that many seniors see a stigma around retirement living,” says Denise Tidman, Executive Director at Norgarden/The Peninsula in Sidney. “They remember places that their own parents or family members had gone to and those memories were not good ones. Generally, people are so surprised at how beautiful the communities are and what amazing services they have to offer.”
This ain’t your grandmother’s nursing home.
“Often, the move is motivated by their children or a concerned relative and that can create counter will, one more thing that they feel they are losing control over or are being told to do,” says Tidman. “In all my years in the business, I can count on one hand the number of people that have moved in and said, ‘no, this is not for me.’ Most are bemoaning the fact that they didn’t do it many years before, so they could enjoy it for a longer period. I encourage people to just be curious.”
Like in college.
“I always tell people to start doing their due diligence far before they think they will need to,” adds Tidman. “It puts them in the driver’s seat and allows them ample time to explore and educate themselves.”
The difficulty comes perhaps with the inability to embrace the move. Afterall, notwithstanding the fact that this is one of many changes a person sees in their life, it does come in the relative twilight and, for many, can be a reminder of what comes after twilight.
Sikorski is adamant, “We need to be able to set our seniors up for success, and I believe that being proactive about transitioning them before a crisis happens is a very important step when considering the next move for your loved one.”
Once, we were all 10 feet tall and bulletproof. With a little aging comes wisdom, and most seniors will concede they have shrunk a little and don’t take a bullet like they used to. The honest discussion that we need to have with ourselves and with loved ones needn’t be as difficult as we might imagine. And if we wait too long, the talk may come too late, making for stress and anxiety that could have been avoided.
“With these types of situations, the individual is already having to cope with new, unfamiliar surroundings like hospital and lack of consistency with caregivers. They may be experiencing severe pain and delirium. All these factors can take a major toll on a senior and push them further into decline. It then takes them much longer to settle into a brand-new care home, having to meet another set of new staff in another new environment,” says Sikorski.
Should I stay, or should I go? We ask a version of this question all the time. I did after my third martini at lunch the other day. But when it comes to the difficult decision about leaving home to address present or future needs, the operative word needs to be, well… needs.
“Yes, it will be challenging, at first, for most,” says Sikorski. “But, if you have done your due diligence and chosen a home that you feel is the right fit for you or your loved one, then I believe you have the possibility of an incredible quality of life, which is the No. 1 goal in all of this.”
If you go, yes, there may be trouble. But if you stay too long, it may be double.
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