How to Understand and Empathize with Older Adults’ Fears About Assisted Living

• By Jean Nesian
• December 28, 2022

For all the undeniably wonderful perks that assisted living services offer seniors, there will always be significant factors that will hold people back from moving into their care homes. What’s sad is that this fear is something that’s often unjustified. 

What exactly are the usual qualms and reasons holding seniors back from making that transition? Let’s take a look at the facts below so we can empathize more with their situation.

Understand that It’s A Milestone in One’s Life

Before we even dive into the fear aspect, we need to acknowledge the fact that deciding to live in an assisted living community is a big decision. While a move to a care home offering senior assisted living near me is never really permanent, it’s still one that has an immense impact on one’s life. 

You’ll be moving into an entirely different social setting. Everything and everyone you’ll be interacting with will be relatively new. We always feel a mix of anticipation and uncertainty when faced with the unfamiliar, regardless of our age. 

We need to realize the magnitude of the decision, as they try to envision the life they’ll be living going forward with these facts in mind. Of course, it doesn’t really stop there. The gravity of the decision is further escalated by other fear-driven factors. 

Top Reasons Why Older Adults Have Second Thoughts About Moving into Senior Living Communities

• Fear of losing their connection with loved ones.

This applies especially to seniors who have been taken care of by their loved ones for a long time. Losing a vital social connection with anyone is never easy, much more so with a family member. As you can see, this feeling of trepidation mostly hinges on the ever-present challenge of loneliness among seniors staying in an assisted living community near me.

On the whole, there’s also the profound dread of being forgotten. Being able to wake up every day to readily talk with your loved ones is a privilege almost any senior would undoubtedly try to hold on to for as long as possible, after all. 

• Loss of privacy and independence. 

This is a completely understandable sentiment, considering most assisted living with memory care near me will show caretakers seemingly “hovering” over every senior in the community. The mere phrase “assisted living” doesn’t really help as well since it implies assistance in day-to-day activities. 

If you’re unaware of how communities render their services, wouldn’t that conjure up images of caretakers always standing right behind or beside you, never really giving you a moment to spend your time alone?

• Possible expensive costs of senior living communities. 

While assisted living care is generally more affordable than in-home care, it’s still essentially an expense – and a long-term one at that. Seniors are in their retirement years, and even if they’ve saved up over the years, most tend to be thriftier. That being said, this is not so much a “fear” as a valid reason since not all older adults share the same financial status, even if they’re professionals or owned a business once.

• Fear of having to take part in a community and events and activities continuously.

A lot of us tend to be excited by the prospect of meeting new people and taking part in new experiences. However, there are also those among us who prefer to have more privacy (i.e. introverted people). Most introverted seniors may have qualms about the fact that they’ll have to be in front of and socialize with other seniors and caretakers even if they don’t feel like doing it.

The same rings true for the community-wide activities and events that are planned by assisted living services every year. Some may believe that participating in these activities is mandatory. 

How Can We Help Allay Their Fears?

We’ve compiled the most effective ways to overcome the challenges we’ve outlined above. These guidelines are, of course, assuming that the senior has the budget for assisted living and is willing to spend for it. 

Give them a clear picture of what an assisted living community is. 

The most optimal way to dispel fear is by seeing the real challenges and problems that we’re actually facing. In most cases, senior care communities already anticipate these fears. Our job is primarily to help older adults see that most of their fears are unfounded and make them realize that, “it’s not so bad, after all!”

• For instance, help them see that most communities make it a point to maintain an open line of communication with their families. Some even take extra steps and encourage family members to regularly take part in their programs and activities. 
• For the privacy issue, take the time to enlighten them about the policies of the communities regarding it. Most communities tend to keep a firm balance between independence and support, with a few even tailoring their services to foster the former more.
• For those who are more introverted, explain to them that most communities are amenable to the social needs of their clients. More importantly, they should already be given a good overview of the people they’ll be interacting with regularly in a given community. 
• What about the problem of costs? The solution is relatively simple. Provide a comparison table of service costs in your local area. For instance, you can research all the assisted living facilities in Madison Ohio, and outline the service fees of each one.

Conclusion

Seneca once said that “we suffer more in imagination than in reality.” This could not ring truer in this particular dilemma faced by older adults. More often than not, those who take a leap of faith sooner tend to express the least regret at not having moved sooner. That being said, the best course to take is to make them realize the basis of their fears, besides helping them pinpoint what exactly it is they’re afraid of. Once they discover that most of it is unfounded, then that’s the best time to present them with the advantages of staying in Assisted living communities near me.