What Is Assisted Living?
Asking, “what is assisted living?” is a great question. At CarePlanIt here’s how we answer.
There are only three ways to live:
> Independent
> Assisted
> Dependent
Keeping this in mind helps to sift through advertising and marketing materials. For assisted living facilities, you want to find out the assistance offered by the facility. Also, most facilities offer amenities like facilitated group activities.
What Assistance Is Offered By Assisted Living
The big areas of assistance are meals, medication management, cleaning, laundry, and transportation. The big amenities are facilitator-led group activities.
Meals
As we age, the types of things we do decreases. Eating however continues. Most seniors place a high value on good meals. After all, it’s something they do every day. In addition, as we age we often find it more difficult to prepare meals. The difficulty may come from problems grocery shopping or from preparing meals.
Most facilities offer meal services. These services vary dramatically from commissaries to restaurants to cafes.
Medication Management
Many facilities offer medication management assistance. This is when a nurse or aide prepares and distributes a resident’s medication.
Cleaning
Like meals. cleaning gets more difficult as we age. Maybe it’s difficulty pushing heavy vacuum cleaners or climbing ladders to get to hard-to-reach places. Whatever it is, the older we get, the more difficult it is to clean. Most facilities offer cleaning options.
Laundry
Just like meals and cleaning, laundry gets harder as we age. Most facilities offer a variety of laundry options.
Transportation
Transportation is critical for seniors. It’s how we get to our doctor appointments, restaurants, and entertainment venues. Many facilities offer transportation options.
Assisted Living Amenities
Most facilities offer amenities. These include:
Other Resources On Assisted Living
See our Sections on Housing and Health.
The NIH covers assisted living here.
In most cases, these facilities are designed and legally zoned for varying levels of permanent help. We discuss these options in detail stating here.
See our Housing Section for details on Assisted Living Facilities.