The Path to Finding a Senior Living Community


Book Description

A concise tutorial to assist as you walk down the path of senior housing. Answers questions such as when is it time to make a move, how to locate and choose the right senior living community, what other options are available, how to afford a senior living community, and more!




Senior Living Communities


Book Description

The demand for residential communities for seniors rises as the U.S. population continues to age. This growth means that new administrators and staff members often are learning by trial and error the complicated task of delivering high-quality and consistent services to elderly persons. While many new facilities have been successful, others have been plagued by a variety of administrative and financial difficulties. Senior Living Communities remains the definitive guide to managing these facilities. In this thoroughly updated and revised edition, Benjamin W. Pearce offers a wealth of sound advice and practical solutions. He discusses resident relations, operating methods, staffing ratios, department management, cost containment, sales and marketing strategies, techniques of financial analysis, budgeting, and human resources. New chapters address issues particular to dementia care and architecture, and the appendix contains a department-by-department audit of senior living operations. From the front lines to the boardroom, this book should be a part of every decision-making process for improving and maintaining assisted living, congregate, and continuing care retirement communities.




Disrupting the Status Quo of Senior Living


Book Description

With 10,000 baby boomers turning 65 each day, the need for senior living is growing at a steep rate, and the aging services field has been hard at work preparing for these new customers. Current practices aim to bring the kind of comfort and amenities enjoyed at hotels and resorts to the settings we create for older adults to live in. But what if these efforts are misdirected? Interweaving research on aging, ideas from influential thinkers in the aging services field, and the author's own experiences managing and operating senior living communities, Disrupting the Status Quo of Senior Living: A Mindshift challenges readers to question long-accepted practices, examine their own biases, and work toward creating vibrant cultures of possibility and growth for elders. Shining a light on her own professional field, Jill Vitale-Aussem exposes the errors of current thinking and demonstrates how a shift in perspective can effect real cultural transformation. Her book delves into society's inherent biases about growing older--where ageism, paternalism, and ableism abound--and provokes readers to examine how a youth-obsessed culture unconsciously impacts even the most well-meaning senior living policies, practices, and organizations. Deconstructing the popular hospitality model, for example, Vitale-Aussem explains how it can actually undermine feelings of purpose and independence. In its place, she proposes better ways to create opportunities for older people to exercise choice, autonomy, and self-efficacy. Filled with empowering stories of elders who find purpose and belonging within their senior residences, Disrupting the Status Quo of Senior Living builds on AARP's disrupt aging work and demonstrates that to truly transform senior living, we must dig deeper and create communities that promote the potential and value of the people who live and work in these settings.




Assisted Living 911


Book Description

"As a licensed clinical psychologist, I have worked with families as they begin, and then navigate, the complex experience of making decisions about senior care communities. This process includes, but is not limited to, deciding when to transition a senior from home to a care facility, what type of facility is most appropriate, and the family's budget. Often, over the course of this process, families evaluate the quality of a facility, and what cost options align with only to find that they have lots of questions and relatively few answers, and end up making what amounts to an uninformed decision, despite this being one of the most important that they may ever make. Assisted Living 9-1-1 is a compassionately written practical guide, giving living care decision making. It also provides targeted insider tips and strategies that family caregivers can use to guide decision making and frame discussions with senior community representatives, such that the process of choosing a care facility reflects specificity to straightforward, comforting and empowering resource. This book translates the enigma of decision making into easy to understand language and concise action steps. It is certain to be an invaluable companion to those who are facing and trying to embrace senior care decisions."-Teion Wells Harrison, PHD Licensed Clinical Psychologist "This book is extremely detailed and answers every question that ponders the mind of an individual or even family when it comes to placing or making decisions for your elderly loved ones for an assisted living facility."-Erika Butler, RN"Assisted Living 9-1-1 is a perfect resource for those inquiring about assisted living for a loved one. This book provides hands on instructions on how to prepare for the talk, how to get family on board, and how to solidify plans for assisted living. A lot of families have a hard time accepting the decline of a loved one. Oftentimes there are disagreements in the family about placing a loved one in assisted living, even if it's the right decision. I particularly enjoyed how this book provided conflict resolution to help one navigate through the discord. Overall it's an easy read with lots of helpful information. Two thumbs up!"-Sheena Hall, MSW LSW, Columbus, OHAs a family caregiver for many of us will come a time when a loved one will suddenly need the services of a senior living community.Often this need happens unexpectedly due to a major event in our loved ones' life.With so much educational material available, it can lead to information overload. Most seniors and their families are not prepared for such a life changing event.This leads to the family caregiver taking off work, emotional and financial stress, and making numerous decisions that affect themselves as well as their loved ones well being.Family members do their best to help their aging parent in an overwhelming journey often completing the process with an unpleasant experience or uneasy in their decisions.This quick, simple, and crucial resource will guide you through the complex situations families go through and provide solutions every step of the way so you can make educated decisions with confidence. This book guides you through: *Understanding the differences, positives and negatives of independent living, assisted living, memory care, nursing homes, and continuing care retirement communities; including senior community options many families are not aware of.*How to evaluate senior communities and avoid common pitfalls families regret*A detailed senior community checklist and questionnaire designed to aid in the prevention of getting taken advantage of *The average cost of these senior communities.*Options on how to pay for these services and dispelling some payment myths. *In$ider Tips located throughout the book*Having the discussion with your elder parent*Handling sibling disputes*Determining what level of care is needed for your loved one*And Much M







Building Type Basics for Senior Living


Book Description

Publisher description




The Village Effect


Book Description

In her surprising, entertaining, and persuasive new book, award-winning author and psychologist Susan Pinker shows how face-to-face contact is crucial for learning, happiness, resilience, and longevity. From birth to death, human beings are hardwired to connect to other human beings. Face-to-face contact matters: tight bonds of friendship and love heal us, help children learn, extend our lives, and make us happy. Looser in-person bonds matter, too, combining with our close relationships to form a personal “village” around us, one that exerts unique effects. Not just any social networks will do: we need the real, in-the-flesh encounters that tie human families, groups of friends, and communities together. Marrying the findings of the new field of social neuroscience with gripping human stories, Susan Pinker explores the impact of face-to-face contact from cradle to grave, from city to Sardinian mountain village, from classroom to workplace, from love to marriage to divorce. Her results are enlightening and enlivening, and they challenge many of our assumptions. Most of us have left the literal village behind and don’t want to give up our new technologies to go back there. But, as Pinker writes so compellingly, we need close social bonds and uninterrupted face-time with our friends and families in order to thrive—even to survive. Creating our own “village effect” makes us happier. It can also save our lives. Praise for The Village Effect “The benefits of the digital age have been oversold. Or to put it another way: there is plenty of life left in face-to-face, human interaction. That is the message emerging from this entertaining book by Susan Pinker, a Canadian psychologist. Citing a wealth of research and reinforced with her own arguments, Pinker suggests we should make an effort—at work and in our private lives—to promote greater levels of personal intimacy.”—Financial Times “Drawing on scores of psychological and sociological studies, [Pinker] suggests that living as our ancestors did, steeped in face-to-face contact and physical proximity, is the key to health, while loneliness is ‘less an exalted existential state than a public health risk.’ That her point is fairly obvious doesn’t diminish its importance; smart readers will take the book out to a park to enjoy in the company of others.”—The Boston Globe “A hopeful, warm guide to living more intimately in an disconnected era.”—Publishers Weekly “A terrific book . . . Pinker makes a hardheaded case for a softhearted virtue. Read this book. Then talk about it—in person!—with a friend.”—Daniel H. Pink, New York Times bestselling author of Drive and To Sell Is Human “What do Sardinian men, Trader Joe’s employees, and nuns have in common? Real social networks—though not the kind you’ll find on Facebook or Twitter. Susan Pinker’s delightful book shows why face-to-face interaction at home, school, and work makes us healthier, smarter, and more successful.”—Charles Duhigg, New York Times bestselling author of The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business “Provocative and engaging . . . Pinker is a great storyteller and a thoughtful scholar. This is an important book, one that will shape how we think about the increasingly virtual world we all live in.”—Paul Bloom, author of Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil From the Hardcover edition.




Your Senior Housing Options


Book Description

As we age, it's never easy to face the prospect of what to do when we need living assistance. But the reality is that two-thirds of today's seniors will eventually need long-term care, with 20 percent needing it for longer than five years. If you are a retirement-age baby boomer or senior, don't wait for a health crisis to occur. You owe it to yourself-and your family-to plan for the future today. Although we've all heard horror stories, great facilities where residents are treated like gold are out there. How do you find them? You have to do your homework, ask the right questions, and look beyond the superficial to find what's right for you. With experience as both an industry expert and a loving daughter, Diane Twohy Masson is passionate about helping seniors find the retirement community that fits their price range, lifestyle, and needs. This guidebook offers a proactive approach to navigating the complex maze of senior housing options. It will help you understand the costs and consequences of the various possibilities including home care, independent living, assisted living, group homes, memory care, and skilled nursing care facilities.




Senior Cohousing


Book Description

This book presents a concise description and qualitative exploration of a new residential option for older adults: senior cohousing. It describes the practical, structural and communal aspects of senior cohousing and shares the lived experiences of actual residents. Pursuing an existential-phenomenological approach, the authors visited a selection of senior cohousing communities throughout the US and interviewed members to investigate their experiences in several regards: gathering together; developing the mission and architectural design; defining member expectations for the community; and engaging in cooperative self-management, consensus building, shared tasks and mutual activities as an ongoing way of life. In addition, the authors explored the benefits, challenges and surprises that community members have encountered along the way, and what these experiences have meant for their lives. Given its unique insights, the book offers a valuable resource for academics and all those working and interested in gerontology, sociology, psychology, nursing, public health, housing and the consumer sciences. It will also benefit active older adults who are considering new housing options.




Paths to Leadership in the Senior Living Industry


Book Description

This book assembles many of the great leaders of the senior living and care industry to discuss their paths to and views on leadership. Each chapter provides readers with ideas, information, and inspiration on how to achieve leadership in this dynamic, mission-focused industry. It includes various strategies for success, such as promoting meaning and purpose in corporate culture, making decisions in the absence of perfect information, managing your personal assets of relationships and reputation, and finding competitive advantages through technology, training, and team-building. These leaders also share their experiences responding to COVID-19 and discuss how the pandemic may change the future of leadership in the industry. Whether your path starts in gerontology, nursing, social work, design, real estate, finance, law, operations, or technology, and whether one pursues work in the private, nonprofit, or government sectors, this volume provides a valuable resource for all aspiring and developing leaders in the senior living industry.