Monday, June 02, 2008

How to make retirement homes not be like high school

I previously blogged that they need to make retirement homes not be like high school. I now have a couple of ideas on where to start.

I'm drawing on my university experience here. I lived and worked on campus in university, so I should have been getting the full impact of the institutional environment, but it didn't feel like high school to me. I've pinpointed a couple of reasons why: I could leave the campus whenever I wanted, and I didn't particularly need anyone on campus to be my friend.

The issue of leaving campus can be encapsulated in food. Most days, I would buy something in the campus cafeteria. However, I was also perfectly free to go anywhere in the city and buy any food I wanted, whether groceries or restaurant. No one would stop me and there were no limits on me except my own laziness and my own fear of running out of money. So because of this, I didn't feel trapped by the cafeteria's menu at all. I felt like I had complete freedom and full run of the city. This applies to everything else too. Because I could come and go as I pleased, I could take in a movie or a concert or go shopping or visit friends or whatever. Even though I only ended up leaving campus about once a week, I didn't feel trapped there at all because I could go wherever I wanted.

What this means for retirement homes is that they should be located in an area that has enough amenities and transit that the seniors feel like they can do whatever they want. A van that goes to the mall once a week isn't good enough. There should be grocery/drugstore/library/clothing/a couple of cafes within a walking distance that's feasible for the seniors, and transit to everywhere. The sense of being able to come and go as one pleases is very important. Looking at the seniors in my life, the thing that bugs them the most is having to depend on someone else to drive them. Making it so they aren't dependent on someone else to get around would seriously boost morale.

I didn't need anyone on campus to be my friend because I already had all the friends I needed. I needed to get along civilizedly with classmates and co-workers, but I didn't need them to actually like me because I already had mi cielito and Poodle and other people whom I haven't assigned a pseudonym yet. (If you want a pseudonym, pick your own and let me know.) This just left no room for petty drama to happen because it didn't have to be your social life at all, unlike high school where you were supposed to be able to find a best friend and a second-best friend and a group of friends and a appropriate range of kissing partners all from within the same pool of 800 students (and you were expected to have a friend in every class you were randomly assigned to take).

So to translate this for seniors, first they have to have the resources they need to maintain their outside relationships. Everyone should have a phone in their room and internet access. (No, most seniors today don't need it, but they will soon. Hands up everyone whose parents have email.) Second, retirement home life should be organized in a way that minimizes any requirement of spending time with any particular randomly-assigned person. For example, in the home profiled in the article, residents has assigned seating in the dining room, and everyone at at once. This means you have to get along with the other people assigned to your table or else Every. Single. Meal. is going to be miserable. Why not let them sit where they want? Why not serve dinner over a period of several hours during which people can come and go as they please? Why not give them the option of eating in their room? Everything in the retirement home should be organized this way, so people aren't forced to spend time together with specific any more than happens by random chance. Then if someone grates on you, you can just go about your lives separately without having to make nice at each other.

Seniors have to spend the rest of their lives there. They deserve better than to spend the rest of their lives in high school. Work on making them not beholden to the institutional nature of the environment.

4 comments:

laura k said...

You're right. But phones and internet access in rooms - as opposed to in common areas that anyone can use - are not going to be affordable for most of these places. (Tons of seniors use the internet right now, too. I'm sure you know that.) That's also the issue with meals.

At least this is what my sister, a geriatric nurse in a nursing home, would say.

Coming and going as they please is great, as long as everyone is mentally and physically able to find their way there and back.

But maybe I'm thinking more nursing facility than retirement home. Hmm.

impudent strumpet said...

I'm assuming it could be financial feasible based on the university model. We paid like $600ish a month for room and board (this was 5-8 years ago), w hich included internet (we paid market rates for telephone), and meals were served over a period of time rather than having everyone eat at 6:00 or whatever. The article said they were paying $3000ish a month to live in the retirement home, so I figured it would be within the range of absorbable expenses.

I'm assuming they could come and go if the location was appropriate on the basis that the article said a few residents still had their own cars. Of course, I don' tknow why exactly the ones without cars couldn't have cars any more.

Anonymous said...

The fact that they ARE like high school (only with the worst bullies in charge) is precisely why everyone who can avoid them does so.

You're so right. We need a whole new model to have some community and some safety without the total loss of independence, something that seems very difficult for consumer culture to conceive.

laura k said...

I'm guessing the difference is the cost of staffing a retirement home is much more, because of medical care.

The people who can't have cars probably are not mentally or physically capable of driving anymore. Either too confused, or eyesight not good enough, etc.

You're totally right about the high school stuff, though.