Boomers are Preparing to Age in Place
Most aging Americans desire to remain at home as they enter into their elder years. This may require some home modifications to make the living environment more accessible and safe. Start planning ahead now if you know that you would like to remain at home for as long as possible. For senior home care services in the Minneapolis and St. Paul MN area, visit www.angelcaremn.com.
Boomers settle in so they can ‘age in place’
The house Paul Nunes and his wife, Elizabeth Waller, bought 25 years ago in Fairport, N.Y., is filled with family memories, including the pencil lines on one wall tracking his daughters’ growth. But the 110-year-old house doesn’t have an easy way for Waller, 57, to get around with her worsening arthritis.
So the couple bought a smaller house nearby and are having it rehabilitated to become what Nunes called “age-friendly,” from wider doorways to a bathroom shower that does not have any lip or edge to step over.
The idea behind aging in place — making changes to a home to accommodate an aging resident — is not new. But the idea is getting increased attention as the USA’s 76 million Baby Boomers grow older.
“They are now entering that age where they’re dealing with their aging parents and with their own aging,” says Elinor Ginzler, senior vice president for livable communities at the AARP, formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons.
An AARP survey earlier this year found 33% of adults ages 45 and up have made changes to their current home to stay there longer.
And a National Association of Home Builders survey done in fall 2009 found that such design features as step-free entrances, levered door handles instead of knobs, electrical outlets higher from the floor and enough clearance in kitchens and washrooms for wheelchairs were becoming commonplace in new home construction and remodeling jobs.
“Whenever we do a remodel, like a bathroom, we always suggest some of the aging-in-place products and making the doors a little wider, putting grab bars in showers,” says Donna Shirey of Shirey Contracting in Issaquah, Wash., chair of the home builders’ remodeling wing.
“We want this to become the way homes are in America,” Ginzler says. And with products such as grab bars in showers being designed to look less institutional and more decorative, she says, “the stigma around many of these products is going away.”
