Senior Living Advice: Home has a different meaning during COVID

By Beth Dow, Solutions By Beth

What is home?

We often associate the term home with a specific structure.  If you think of what home means to you, you may find that it is not so much the structure as it is the feeling.

Home is a place where you feel safe. A place where you feel loved, respected, and cared for. Home is a happy place where you can laugh and be yourself.

Since February, the restrictions brought to us by the coronavirus, may have caused your once secure and comfortable home – your place of comfort and refuge – to lose its “safe” feeling.  Everyone deserves to feel the comfort of home, but in these new days of living with COVID-19, to regain that feeling may require a change in your definition of home.

If you are older and of the “shelter in place” age bracket, you may have experienced for the first time not feeling safe in your home.  Whether that was due to not feeling comfortable going out to buy groceries, or just feeling lonely due to the social isolation, the comfort of home may have changed for you.

Unfortunately, I’m afraid that we are going to be living with some form of the restrictions of COVID-19 for a while.  And at a minimum, this experience should urge each of us to pause and really assess, what  “home” needs to look like in the future.

Regaining the security you feel now living in your present home may mean adding help in your home.  Someone who can do your grocery shopping, run errands, provide you social interaction, help monitor your health and well-being.

While you may have not ever imagined you would have someone in to help, this may be just the right time to do it.  Remember very often this person is not there because “you can’t” do something.  They are there because it may be better for your health and well-being to allow someone else to do it.   

Regaining your security you feel living in your present home may mean changing the address of where you call home. Remember, home is not a physical structure.  Home is place where you feel safe and  happy.  This may be a perfect time for you to look at Independent Senior Communities.  These are not Assisted Living Communities nor are they Nursing Homes.  These are Senior Communities, where Independent Seniors can live and feel confident they are safe. There, meals and housekeeping are provided and you will have social interaction with other independent seniors.

Are you afraid you may not meet the criteria for Independent Senior Living? Or, would you like a little more help than Independent Senior Communities offer but do not want the restrictions placed on residents in Assisted Living Communities?

You can get the same extra hand in your Independent Living Community as you can in your present home.  Home Helpers Home Care Services can come to you, wherever you call home.

The coronavirus doesn’t look like it is going anywhere anytime soon.  The winter months, which bring their own set of issues, are  just around the corner.

Take the time before winter to ask yourself this question: “Where is the best place to live where I can feel safe, thrive and be happy for the rest of my days?”  

Once you have that answer, you can begin working on your plan to get back the feeling of home you remember.

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Beth Dow is a Dementia and Alzheimer’s Educator, CAEd, Geriatric Care Manager and Certified Senior
Advisor. Contact her at [email protected].