Retirement Communities Try To Serve Growing Demand To ‘Age In Place’
The New York Times profiles the trend toward "everything-in-one" facilities that offer both independent and assisted-living options. And USA Today reports on how the swelling ranks of adults with Alzheimer's and dementia pose new challenges for everyone from caregivers and police to store clerks and restaurant servers.
The New York Times:
The Everything-In-One Promise Of A Continuing Care Community
Is it possible to have it all in retirement? That’s what so-called continuing care retirement communities promise.These hybrids offer independent living apartments (and sometimes free-standing cottages) along with assisted-living support, home care, a nursing home and often specialized memory care, all within one complex. The idea is for a resident to “age in place” and obtain additional services as that person becomes more frail and dependent, without having to move. (Wasik, 2/26)
USA Today:
Communities Strive To Be 'Dementia-Friendly' As Alzheimer's Numbers Grow
"People often don’t know how they are supposed to respond to me, how they are supposed to act with me,” says [Ron Grant, who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s]. That’s a common problem as an aging population swells the ranks of those with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia — disorders that impair memory and reasoning. While people with dementia may eventually end up home-bound or in care facilities, most first spend years living in their communities, going to places of worship, stores, banks and restaurants and encountering law enforcement and medical workers. Better preparing everyone from waiters to police officers to support them and their caregivers is the goal of a growing movement for “dementia-friendly communities.” Grant is a spokesman for the largest effort, a coalition called Dementia Friendly America (DFA). (Painter, 2/28)
