With old age comes a lot of wisdom, knowledge, and appreciation of the world. But many older people also find that their needs have changed and that they now need more help with day to day tasks. This is not uncommon, as old age can lead to changes in both the body as well as in the mind. For most people, long term care will eventually become necessary, most likely in an assisted living facility. From senior memory care to help with daily tasks, assisted living apartments and other such residences are hugely ideal for the elder community for a wide array of reasons.
For one thing, far too many people simply just are not able to be cared for by loved ones. While it is certainly noble to take on the care of an elderly family member, perhaps even a parent, it is something that most people simply do not have the resources to properly do. Most of them have jobs and their own lives, and trying to balance that with the care needs of the elderly person who has moved in with them can prove to be quite impossible indeed. Unfortunately, far too many people are living in this way and taking on the role of the unpaid caretaker out of love. In fact, more than 18 billion hours of unpaid care were given in the year of 2016 alone, an amount of care that was worth an estimated $230 million.
Fortunately, senior memory care and other such care can be given in a nursing home, assisted living facility, or even a retirement home with more of an emphasis on senior community living. The ability to get senior memory care will be essential for dementia patients, for whom this senior memory care is often incredibly key to their overall quality of life. Unfortunately, dementia is far more common than the average person realizes, as there are up to 100 different type of it that are currently diagnosed.
Alzheimer’s disease, however, is by and large the most common type of dementia out there. In fact, it actually makes up more than 75% of all dementia cases seen, at least of those recorded throughout the United States. In total, there are at least five million people who have been diagnosed with the disease in this one country alone. And though about 200,000 of these people are under the age of 65 and have been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s, which is certainly incredibly tragic in its own right, there is no doubting the fact that Alzheimer’s disease is something that very much primarily impacts the elderly population.
Unfortunately, Alzheimer’s disease can progress quite rapidly and those who have been diagnosed with it are likely to need senior memory care in a memory care facility at some point or another. Fortunately, senior memory care facilities are becoming more common than ever before. This means, of course, that more and more people will be able to take advantage of the services that the typical senior memory care facility will be able to offer.
But what exactly are these benefits of the typical senior memory care nursing home? For one thing, many memory care plans allow for 24 hour surveillance whenever it is deemed to be necessary. For many patients and residents of senior memory care facilities all throughout the country, this is quite critical indeed. In fact, it is something that will help to keep many a person safe and free from serious injury or even untimely death, as can become all too much of a reality when such a person is still living independently.
Assistance with basic daily activities is also quite commonplace. After all, up to 40% of all residents of such senior care facilities will get daily help with at least three daily tasks, if not more than even that. This can make going about the day so much easier – and so much safer as well, something that can never be discounted or forgotten about by any means. So while moving to a senior memory care community might seem like an incredibly daunting thing, it’s something that will more than pay off in the end.
