Accessible Bathrooms to Age in Place

Every year, according to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and The Unites States Department of Health and Human Services, thousands of seniors injure themselves in their own bathrooms. Many of those injuries occur while bathing or showering. Seniors report it's gotten to the point they dread going into their own bathrooms. A curb to access the shower must be stepped over. Some experience claustrophobia in the shower area and now avoid taking a shower. Slipping and falling and not having anyone there to pick them is a major fear. Once not a problem, turning on the water or lights are reported difficult tasks for them.  If you live alone and don't have plans to go into an assisted living facility, you should consider making your bathroom safe and functional without sacrificing elegance.

Companies that specialize in retrofitting bathrooms can recommend a variety of solutions such as non-slip tiles, curbless entry to your shower, in-shower, built-in bench, specialty showering apparatus, wide doorway for easy access, touch-only sensor faucets and a wide variety of other solutions to make your bathroom more accessible.

View our photo galleries of accessible bathrooms, accessible kitchens, accessible laundry, work rooms and offices, accessible living spaces and outdoor living and access.

Stretching to Relieve Lower Back Pain (Video)

Back Pain is one of humanity's most frequent complaints. Approximately 98% of back pain patients are diagnosed with nonspecific acute back pain which has no serious underlying pathology.

Here is a video of stretches and simple exercises that can help alleviate lower back pain.



Don Demas is a Certified Fitness Trainer and owner of Demas Body-Shaping, Ltd and 133Fitness.com specializing in customized fitness videos, live streaming workouts, web-cam workouts and individual exercise downloads.

Have a questions for our experts?  Please send your question to info@seniorwellnessspecialists.com

Skilled Nursing vs. Nursing Homes vs. Extended Care vs. Assisted Living vs. Independent Living

For all intents and purposes, these are all convenient marketing terms created by the seniors industry to make aging and its accompanying health issues more palatable to families. What is sometimes lost in all this is that they are all congregate living lifestyles.

Nursing Homes used to be the darling of the industry because it used to make investors a lot of money: not from the services provided but rather from the sharp appreciation of the real estate.  Not the business for the faint of heart, nursing homes can be injurious to the operator. The staffing nightmares, combined with the extraordinary high liability insurance that has to be carried, makes this business model less desirable than in the past. Couple that with little-appreciating real estate values and less reimbursement from government and a host of other reasons, the Nursing Home business is not desirable and considerably less profitable than in the past.

Recently NHC (one of the country's largest providers of high acuity skilled nursing) pulled out of Florida because of all the litigation problems (medical mistakes), in addition to the above mentioned issues.

High Acuity Care involving Skilled Nursing comes with pitfalls of its own. At the very least, it calls for a Supervising Nurse and full- time RNs on the floor, ranging in cost of about $5,000 a month. You would have to charge residents about $6,000 a month. This would all be private pay. Again, liability would be an issue, but to a lesser extent than Nursing Home Care. Profits would be diluted.

Assisted Living with Extended Care and Memory Care are trauma driven, and require administering services that pose very little chance of mistakes and lessens the likelihood of litigation.  No full-time RNs needed. Built on a tiered system of resident evaluations (say categories 1-5) residents receive the level of care commensurate with their needs.  The sale of their home or funds from family pay for care.  Assisted Living is a proven product with consistently good returns--no wild fluctuations attributable to recessions and catastrophes. IRRs of 20% and higher are the norm. Steady returns for a cash-flow oriented business. The revenues and profits increase as the residents' needs increase. And they do. Again, this is a self-pay approach to congregate living.  In rare cases does this business model accept Medicaid payments.  Current budget cuts to the program make it even more unlikely that the program will exist at all.

Independent Living and aging in place is a lifestyle choice and not driven by trauma.  Given the choice of choosing a more restrictive environment like assisted living and a nursing home, over 85% of adult children and their parents would opt for a lifestyle of health and independence in the comfort of their home. Typically, the sale of ones’ home is enough to buy a resident 4-6 years of lifestyle in an IL (same in an AL). Other sources of cash: pensions and family. These residents typically need and want relief from housekeeping, meal preparation and transportation, etc. Families, most of all, want to make sure loved ones stay safe and have the flexibility, if and when needed, to consider other less desirable options.

Life is about fulfillment. With it comes the shared responsibility (by government, academia, science, business and families) to continue to strive to redefine aging and provide families with solutions that will allow us to retain our dignity and independence for as long as possible.



Andy Berger

Andy Berger is the president of Senior Wellness Specialists, a lifestyle and healthcare services company offering Universal Design and Senior Concierge services for all stages of life. 

Mom, Dad Or Both Are Moving In To Join Your Unemployed College Grad

Cost-cutting. Money-saving. Budget-slashing. No matter the description, the bottom line is we are all facing significant lifestyle changes that are redefining the way we age and the way we view long-term care. But trying to keep more money in our pockets doesn't always produce favorable results.  Not for families and not for government.

Mom, Dad Or Both Are Moving In To Join Your Unemployed College Grad

Take the case of adult children (clients of ours) that found themselves having to house an 81 year-old mom and an 85-year-old dad, right alongside their recent college grad who's been living at home for six months because he's been unable to find a job with his business degree. Mom and dad had gone through their savings as a result of medical issues, and had only social security (social security replaces only 40 % of pre-retirement income; most Americans need to replace about 70% of the amount they earned while working), Medicare, dad's modest pension and family to rely on.

The sheer stress would have been enough to rip apart the strongest of families. But this family persevered by making intelligent decisions and by being proactive. By placing a premium on family and wellness and independence, they set out to create a safe, comfortable and beautiful environment for mom and dad by eliminating barriers and improving the quality of life for all who share the home. Learn more about how we integrate universal design and expertise from the medical community into our programs by visiting us at www.seniorwellnessspecialists.com.

Start making healthy lifestyle decisions and saving now. Plan for the future today. The family described in the case study above is atypical of most families, who remain unprepared to cope with the many challenges that aging brings. Responsibility for our collective well-being rests with many publics: Family, friends, business, government and science. Our dependence on a badly frayed and battered safety net of entitlement programs is something we have to wean off if we ever want to regain the respect and edge we once enjoyed over other developed economies.

Medicare and Medicaid funds, once intended to safeguard the-less well-off through retirement, are now cut or frozen. Take Medicaid in the state of Florida. For over ten years there's been a moratorium on new nursing home construction. That means thousands of seniors have been and will continue to be on a waiting list. Only in extreme emergencies and only on a case by case basis has the government stepped in with any kind of plan or money to help a struggling family place a loved one in a nursing home.  Funding for assisted living also has been limited. Families have had to pay the $50,000 to $100,000 annually out-of-pocket for this level of care. Then, of course, there are the traditional pension funds that are for all intents and purposes bankrupt. New York, New Jersey comes to mind. What's left? Long-term life care insurance. If you were smart and could afford the $1,000 or so a quarter in your 40s or early 50s, you're in a good place. Here's to lessons learned.

Ask your wellness questions on aging. Our panel of experts will answer all questions, from the government's role in taking care of seniors to family and sources to help make the transition. Please send your question to info@seniorwellnessspecialists.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

WHAT IS UNIVERSAL DESIGN?

Universal design refers to broad-spectrum architectural planning ideas meant to produce buildings, products and environments that are inherently accessible to both the able-bodied and the physically disabled.

Blending aesthetics into core considerations that offer broader accessibility movement and barrier-free concepts, Universal Design is not only pleasing to the eye, but helps people stay in their own home as long as possible.

According to an AARP survey, almost 90 percent of adults 50+ prefer to stay in their homes as long as possible.

While the homes of many older adults have some accessibility features, a great number lack features that make a home universally designed or even visitable.

Homes that lack important ease of use and convenience features may make it difficult for older residents to bathe, use stairs, enter and exit, or meet other daily needs. Such barriers may precipitate an unwanted or premature move to an assisted living facility or to an institutionalized setting, which can limit independence and be emotionally taxing and financially burdensome. Through home modifications (i.e., custom remodeling for a specific resident’s needs) or the adoption of improved standards in new home construction, universal design and visit-ability features can enhance functionality, independence, and safety for everyone. These features thus enable older adults to age in place and allow people with disabilities to remain involved in family and community life.

View our Universal Design Photo Gallery.


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