Finding a Good Home
Forget the old joke about being nice to your kids because they pick out your nursing home. The vast majority of Americans, like Stark, grow old in their own communities. "People want to be where their family and friends are," says Elinor Ginzler, director of livable communities for AARP. Founded in 2001, Beacon Hill Village helps them do that. Open to neighborhood residents over age 50, membership costs $550 a year for individuals or $780 for households. Low- or moderate-income members like Stark, however, pay just $100 a year. Services include things like a weekly ride to the grocery store, nearby exercise classes, and access to a geriatric-care manager. And there's a concierge service of sorts: Need a plumber? A home-health nurse? Beacon Hill Village will set it up through screened providers at a 10 to 50 percent discount. "I would worry about living alone if I didn't have it," says Stark of her Village membership. Similar organizations are being developed in Denver; Washington, D.C.; Madison, Wis.; and elsewhere.
Other communities are creating a different version of the neighborhood-based retirement program. The state of New York is bringing social workers, health programs, and other aging services directly into some 50 "naturally occurring retirement communities," apartment complexes, housing projects, or neighborhoods where the population is growing older. These small programs have produced big results. For example, in Deepdale Garden Co-op, a Queens apartment complex where 60 percent of residents are over 60, city funds and philanthropic grants helped an onsite team-including a nurse and two social workers-reduce residents' risk of falling by addressing medical factors like low vision and hypertension, as well as installing grab bars and fixing cracked sidewalks. Communities in 20 states are launching similar programs.
In other areas, adult children are increasingly turning to an emerging class of professionals to help aging parents stay in their homes. Geriatric-care managers-typically for-profit social workers or nurses specializing in elder issues-can attend doctor's appointments with the patient, supervise medication, hire and oversee home health assistants, or find and evaluate assisted-living or nursing homes. Typical cost: $80 to $200 an hour (and rarely covered by insurance). The National Association of Professional Geriatric Care Managers (www.caremanager.org) can provide local referrals.
Joel Kazis, 53, of New York arranged for a Boston geriatric-care manager to work with his parents, who live in Boston. For example, she helped them find a geriatric-care physician and evaluate assisted-living facilities. When they opted for an apartment instead, she found a move coordinator, someone to cook and clean, and made sure grab bars were installed in the bathroom. She even found a geriatric-care manager to assist the couple when they spent a few months in Florida. His folks, Kazis says, "needed additional resources, and I needed someone familiar with those resources."
Even nursing home and assisted living companies are jumping on board. For example, the Sears Methodist Retirement System in Abilene, Texas, a nonprofit that runs 12 senior living facilities, is currently testing a high-tech service called Seniors Safe@Home. It uses sensors to monitor whether clients have gotten out of bed, used the bathroom, or visited the fridge. Automated systems dispense medications and monitor conditions like blood pressure and blood sugar levels. Data are screened by a call center and uploaded to a website that clients' children can access.
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