How is Life in a Retirement Home
Summary
– Successful Living in a retirement home
– How is life in a retirement home organized?
– Life in a retirement home: keeping in touch with loved ones
– Respect and dignity in a retirement home
– Life in a retirement home: the disoriented
Life in a retirement home can also provide moments of happiness.
Public retirement homes, private retirement homes, medicalized retirement homes, or retirement home residences: all of them aim to make the life of the elderly more pleasant. It is thus possible for them to enjoy their life in a retirement home.
Successful life in a retirement home
Whether dependent or not, older adults often live in a place other than their own home, which they may or may not have had to leave willingly.
The reception and entry into a retirement home are essential for better integration. In the same way, the entourage of close relatives is necessary to help the older person pass this stage.
Autonomous people must continue to live as they wish, which is much more difficult for people who are physically dependent or have cognitive problems. Nevertheless, the stay should be comfortable and pleasant.
The accommodation, care, and services must therefore be adapted to each resident’s individual and specific needs.
How is life in a nursing home organized?
Life in a retirement home is organized around accommodation, services, care, and activities.
Accommodation
Depending on the type of establishment, accommodation can vary from one structure to another (room, studio, individual pavilion). The senior citizen can personalize his or her living space as he or she wishes (photos, knick-knacks, even small furniture). Some will even have the chance to share their new environment with their pet.
As far as accommodation establishments for dependent elderly people are concerned, they offer assistance with daily life, medical and comfort care, a catering service, laundry, and entertainment.
The minimum accommodation services that accommodation establishments must provide for dependent older adults:
– at the level of hotel reception:
◦ provision of a single or double room and communal facilities;
◦ access to a bathroom including a minimum of a sink, shower, and toilet;
◦ provision of electricity, lighting, heating, water, etc., used in the room and the facility;
◦ provision of any equipment inseparably connected with the built environment of the senior living facility;
◦ maintenance and cleaning of rooms;
◦ maintenance and cleaning of common areas and collective premises;
◦ maintenance of buildings, technical installations, and green spaces;
◦ provision of the elements necessary for television and telephone reception in the rooms;
◦ access to means of communication such as the internet in at least part of the establishment;
– At the level of catering services:
◦ access to food service;
◦ provision of three meals, a snack, and provision of a night snack;
– in terms of laundry services:
◦ supply and installation of flat linen and bathroom linen, its renewal, and maintenance;
– At the level of animations of social life:
◦ access to collective animations and activities organized within the establishment;
◦ organization of outside activities.
Care
Care is at the heart of the system: health professionals develop a care project for each resident, an integral part of the life project.
Catering
Food is essential and must be varied and adapted to the resident’s needs. Efforts are made to ensure that the meals’ setting is pleasant (nice decor, nice tablecloths, dishes adapted, and in good condition). It is a convivial moment where the meal is shared in the community, it must be appreciated at any age. The tastes and habits of each person are therefore taken into account by the retirement home staff.
The same is true for the continuously bedridden person: even if the meal is taken in his room, it must remain a moment of pleasure. In some facilities, the menus can be prepared by the residents.
The proposed animations and activities
Life is not dull in a retirement home because many activities are offered. Some establishments take the initiative by organizing outings and walks, and even musical dances. What a break from the routine.
Life in a retirement home: maintaining a link with loved ones
Even if the family is broken up and the person is a widow, the elderly need to keep a link with their loved ones. This is especially important when the holidays are approaching.
The elderly person must not feel abandoned and in total disarray. Therefore, the relatives must surround the seniors as much as possible.
Respect and dignity in a retirement home
Regardless of their state of dependence, both physical and psychological, seniors have rights and are individuals in their own right. This means that the staff supervising the senior must respect him/her by addressing him/her in a polite manner and by calling him/her by his/her family name while avoiding infantilization.
Life in a retirement home: disoriented people
People with Alzheimer’s disease or other cognitive disorders live in adapted living spaces without feeling trapped in the facility where they live.
The environment must be pleasant, comfortable, and, of course, secure. Various and varied activities will embellish the daily life of disoriented people.
