Preparing to Age in Place

Thank you!💜

Thanks. I get them every 3-4 months. Been hoping to find something.

80-year-old woman here ... no, 81, there was a birthday. Two months ago I fell and broke my kneecap, healing well but not feeling entirely steady. (There was a brace the first 5 weeks, don't miss it at all.) My bathtub/shower has two grab bars, one inside and the other just outside. Some very nice folk from the local Health unit were coming around once a week to give me a bath using an inside/outside bench. Recently I felt that the bench was no longer needed. Supervised, I tried standing up for a shower inside the bathtub, with my feet firmly planted on the rubber mat until it was time to carefully turn around to exit. Showering was fine - the problem was getting out with wet feet and not exactly dry hands, with all weight being briefly on the weaker leg. In other words, panic.

A solution which has worked well for me is to bring a [very sturdy] dining room chair into the bathroom next to the tub, with the back of the chair a few feet from the outside grab bar. That way I'm able to hold onto both when stepping out. And the seat holds the towels.

Over the last few years I've sometimes wondered if I was "over the top" in my project to install grab bars and stair rails every possible place they might be needed.
Well, I've recently developed chronic vertigo. Usually it's very mild, almost not noticeable, but once in a while it comes on so strong I feel like a big wrestler has grabbed me and is throwing me around. This morning I was very grateful for the extra stair rail right where I needed it to stop my spinning!
I've seen my doctor and will start physical therapy early next year.
My hiking pole has come in handy, and I'll consider making a fashionable cane so it's ready if I need it.
Aging...could be worse.

There is a crystal in your ear that can cause this.

A PT can cure this in one visit if that's it. Worth trying soon. Don't fall down stairs and end up much worse off. Even if you pay out of pocket for insurance reasons if you can.

My PT told me about it, she treats it frequently with only one session. It about where iI gets stuck spacally in your inner ear or moves to a weird place which can cause it to be intermittent. If this could maybe easily cure it in 30 minutes, why wait. Either way its worth trying. All PTs have to have their doctorate now so all are well educated. Small town or not. Hope this info helps if you haven't already tried this.

Carry your phone everywhere for now or if this can't be fixed soon, a medical necklace to get help - just like girl scputs, be prepared esp if you live alone or are alone during the day.

I hope someone told you not to drive esp if it can get seriously worse in a minute. I don't think I need to say that. Get a weist blood pressure cuff and start taking and writing down your blood pressure twice a day or more if you are more dizzy or have a serious attack.

Have family or someone like a well known neighbor on speed dial. Safety first. There is never too much safety as you know with extra bars. Good self-care and prep for Agjng in place. I need to seriously do that! Jm trying to get an affordable walk-in shower in my condo.

B

I think about this a lot. The last thing anyone wants is to move to a nursing home.

I think staying in place really doesn't have be the long term goal. My older clients are reaching the stage where remaining in a signal family home isn't working for them. Two have moved to senior living apartments. These places in my area cost about $4000 to $7000 per month. It's not long term care, but it does provide 3 meals a day, socialization, transportation and a concierge to help you make arrangements for needed medical care.

My clients can be independent in these arrangements for much longer than if they stayed in place.

We have to stay creative and open minded. I like to think that I could find some golden girls to live with and we would help each other.

But seriously, who on SSA without 500,000+ in the bank can spend 4 to 7000 dollars a month on themselves just to eat and sleep. Not in any way realistic. I think these places are praying on seniors who made $300,000 selling the house they bought for $12,000 in the 50s and will all be closed in 10 years. Thats how my mom was able to be in assisted living for 3 years.

She didn't know that the week she died of Covid was literally the week her money had run out. Could my sister, 79 and still working 70 hrs a week pay 3,000/month for my mother to stay there?

Generations now will never have a home they can sell and make hundreds of thousands on. I'm 70 with, no lie, 23 years left on my mortgage.

I've also seen where aging in place really means "ask your daughter for help." When you live alone and can no longer carry in groceries, or wash the kitchen floor alone or change your sheets, and no half million in the bank to pay for assisted or home care - NOT covered by insurance, its nursing home. We wonder why medicaid is running dry? And the taxes on my $5/hr is what has fed social security and we wonder why its running out. Very few earn as little as an FBI agent. Look at their saleries of less than $150,000 which is peanuts for running the FBI! (Look up Wrays salary.) But another story but does explain why there is no social security left. Nurses now make $100/hr in some places. Oh well...but there is no money for aging in place. Esp without family, kids, healthy spouse. Assisted living won't take you if you need assistance in your apartment. Wheelchair? They can't be taking people to the BR. Thats way beyond the assisted living contract.

I was told by a senior help organization that my insurance will pay for someone to bathe me and take my BP once a week for about 6 weeks after a major medical thing, but even they won't even make me a sandwich. He confirmed that as long as I was clean, they didn't care if I had not eaten or my sheets were 6 months on my bed. He was adamantly rude. Gets paid to help seniors. 5 minutes into my first call with them but my 10th number that day.

We shouldn't end up in a nursing home because we can't change our bed or wash our kitchen floor. I'd be running my (minimal) home graphic design business (I'm 70) from a nursing home bed. Now how crazy is that? I pay $600/year just to rent the software I need but dont even use every month.

Your clients are so fortunate to have 4 to 7,000 a month to throw away? My income is much less than that on SSA and as disabled my whole life, I barely have a comma in my bank balance.

It was weird to read spend 4000/month as if that was doable and NBD. In the 70s, I was making $5/hour as an RN. That doesn't come close to todays prices, even if I had saved 20% of my income for retirement and who can ever do that? And with social security based on that right? My dad never made more than $10,000 a year. Not enough taxes on that to fund our current retirement pool. Is that a separate conversation. I don't think so when we talk about what medicare won't pay for to keep us independent.

But we just stay grateful and sleep on gross sheets. Aging in place is really a misnomer. There are no social supports for that. Its just talk. It doesnt really exist and how realistic is it to live in assisted living without an inheritance?

Your clients are really beyond fortunate and represent the top 20%?

Sorry, I read "concierge" and laughed out loud.

What a great post. I too live on my own. I managed to care for myself through stage 4 appendix cancer treatment (2 major surgeries plus chemo and immunotherapy). I have trouble asking for help so thank goodness I could. It was fortuitous I had put hand rails in for my father when he stayed with me briefly while his own home was being renovated for his own pressing safety needs (like removing the tub and putting in a walk in shower, changing out his gas cooker top to a safer one, moving his bedroom downstairs, decluttering, installing handrails etc).

He and we are very fortunate that one of his granddaughters and her fiancé live on the upper floor while attending university close by then while saving to buy a home. It works brilliantly for everyone - for the time being. Dad is coming up for 90 and wants to stay in the family home as long as he can. His health is good but he can’t leave the house by himself. He’d get lost quickly and confused, and unable to get home. There are many of us children and grand children who take him out and either do or organise anything he needs done around the house or yard. He wears an emergency necklace and we have security cameras outside so we know if he goes out the front or back door and can keep an eye on him. So far he has his privacy inside and we don’t have cameras inside. He’s proactive about his safety and will tell us when he would like us to install them and where.

This post has got me thinking hard about getting ready myself while I have time. Ready for a recurrence or for older age.

Thank you everyone.

@bebold, I totally agree with you 100%. I certainly don't have $4,000-$7,000 a month for assisted living, so I don't know what aging in place will look like for me when I'm unable to change my own sheets! Anyway, I like where I live and I'd like to live out my remaining days here.

I did the math. I spend about 6000 a month in food gas clothing mortgage real estate tax and eating out. If I lived alone in one of those places it would be 4500 with my significant other and a 2 bedroom apartment it would be 6700. We could do it.

People who only have SS will struggle. That's a fact.

I don't have the answers. Like I said we have to be creative. I'm a daughter and my sister is a daughter. It's is hard to resist being the caretaker but I won't because of my own health issues and my sister shouldn't so she says healthy.