Making Decisions as a Family
Watch our video about how to make decisions ass a family and what to consider for your senior loved one.
Explore:
Making Decisions as a Family
Video Transcript
Donna Robbins, Senior Living Planner, Author of On the Road of Life, Drive Yourself: “One of my clients told me one time, she said I never thought that I could make new friends and they’re not the same as my old friends, but they’re as good as my old friends.”
Debra Green, Daughter of Senior Living Resident: “My mother has always taken care of everybody. She took care of her mother and her mother-in-law. She took care of my father. She took care of my brother and me. She has taken care of my children, my brother’s children…she was always the go-to person. Nothing was ever too difficult for her. Physically, mentally, emotionally… she deserves the best.”
Adapting to Change
Debra Green, Daughter of Senior Living Resident: “My mother was living independently in a condo that she and my father had lived in for quite a few years… About 10 years later we were noticing some changes in her personality and some memory problems but it was more the changes in personality that were a red flag.”
Aileen Joyce Ross, Senior Living Resident: “I had someone coming in and that didn’t appeal to me too much…to give me a hand.”
Amy Masek, Daughter of Senior Living Resident: “We had tried for years to encourage her just because there was a lot of inactivity….not as active as she used to be. A lot of sitting on the couch and the back was hurting. And she said, ‘Amy, I’m not moving! I’m not moving!’ But we were looking at places even when she would say, ‘We’re not moving,’ so that we would be ready.”
Aileen Joyce Ross, Senior Living Resident: “You feel like, at the beginning, that you’re giving up your freedom (independence) to choose. But it came around.”
What to Look For
Donna Robbins, Senior Living Planner, Author of On the Road of Life, Drive Yourself: “What I tell my clients is…When you walk through the doors of a community and you can feel that it’s a place that you could live in and that you like, then that’s a consideration. If you walk through it and you don’t feel good, it doesn’t work for you, then that’s not a place you want to live even if people are pushing you to live there.”
The Decision
Aileen Joyce Ross, Senior Living Resident: “Go take a look at different places and compare one with another, see what appeals to you the most as far as activities go and things like that.”
Donna Robbins, Senior Living Planner, Author of On the Road of Life, Drive Yourself: “People that I’ve talked to have always been so excited after they’ve moved because they have socialization. They have activities. They have interesting things going on. They don’t have to clean the apartment. They have food served to them…. They make new friends.”
Aileen Joyce Ross, Senior Living Resident: “I do the exercise in the morning, 10 o’clock. And then we have activities presented to us in the afternoon.“
Amy Masek, Daughter of Senior Living Resident: “…Bingo, tai chi. Knowing that she’s not sitting on a couch just watching TV all day and having her back ache…it’s so much better.”
Debra Green, Daughter of Senior Living Resident: “I feel like they really care about my mother. That they love my mother. And I want her to have the best living situation that she can have so this is it.”
Donna Robbins, Senior Living Planner, Author of On the Road of Life, Drive Yourself: “Where you live matters!”
Where You Live Matters is powered by the American Seniors Housing Association (ASHA), a respected voice in the senior housing industry. ASHA primarily focuses on legislative and regulatory advocacy, research, and educational opportunities and networking for senior living executives, so they can better understand the needs of older adults across the country.