Words of Wisdom - Helping Your Parents Choose to Make the Move to Senior Living
My name is Stacy Hirsch and I am the Community Director at Siena on Brendenwood in Rockford, Illinois. I have been in the position of Community Director for 15 years, with over 30 years’ experience in this Industry. It has been my pleasure helping families and prospective residents to find the perfect fit in community living, as well as help them resolve some of the concerns they have had at home.
I would like to offer you a couple pointers that you may find as good advice when looking to assist an adult senior who is maybe resistant to making this type of move by getting them out to see different options and helping them realize that there are so many factors that could improve their quality of life.
One of those may be getting into a social environment where they have people to talk with every day, having good healthy meals instead of eating those donuts for breakfast, followed by the muffin for lunch, because they don’t want to prepare their meal or burden someone with helping them prepare a meal. Also, having the advantage of transportation available. Quite often seniors give up their cars and they have nobody, but maybe a family member who is available once a week. Three of the more important factors that meet the needs of our seniors are transportation, meals, and social interactions.
Often due to comfort of being familiar in their own home, a fear of change or discouragement of the efforts it takes to move, our loved ones are missing out on some of the best things they could be doing for themselves by getting into a senior community. The thing is many seniors do not realize this until they try. I even encourage prospective residents to come in and try a meal with us or join some of our social programming. We have resident ambassadors at Siena who are delighted to take folks under their wings- join them for a meal, or activity of choice. The ambassadors help take the fears of acclimating alone out of the equation.
Often, it takes a mini crisis which prompts adult siblings to come together and decide that they need to step in to make a plan. While this is never easy, as there are a lot of family dynamics, and you need to maneuver all those little curve balls to get to the finish line. The final hurdle is “how do we get our loved one somewhere safe, with meals, care staff, socialization and friendships while assuring they are comfortable and will acclimate well in this new environment that is not the home they have lived in maybe 40-50 years?” Also, they are fighting you along the way so it is a difficult decision, but you know overall in the long run this is going to be a good change for them, and they will get socialization, and meals, and just having somebody around everyday instead of maybe sitting at home alone, watching the news for hours and saying “I’m fine” which clearly you see they are not. You can see they are struggling and despite it being hard to stand up to your parents- you are being firm on this matter because you love them and want them safe and cared for, as they did for you.
These are very difficult times to maneuver but know we at Siena are here to help support you on this journey, as our experience has told us that once your loved one has made it over the hurdle and has spent a few weeks here acclimating, they too will realize that this was the best decision for them. A very common question many of our new community members ask me after becoming acclimated to Siena is “why did I wait so long to move here?”
It is a big unknown decision, but your support as children, with our guidance can make the move into Siena a great experience with very positive outcomes!
Don’t Wait Too Long!
