In rural areas now finally there's more effort put in through advocacy for the aging to help people remain in their homes and retain some autonomy for as long as possible, even if their financial resources or simply their abilities to keep house themselves have dwindled. Meals on Wheels, Home Heating assistance, mobile libraries, customizable group transportation services for shopping, visiting nurse services, part time cleaners and outreach by other caregivers, some of it on a volunteer basis, some of it on updated and more versatile efforts by government agencies.
All such "patchwork" caring does or can end up being less of a drain on both families and county resources, than if someone just gets plunked into a nursing home prematurely solely for lack of formal "assisted living" opportunities (or the means to pay for needed services).
I've seen these methods of extending autonomy work out for quite a few elderly neighbors, and was happy to see some of them end up in hospice care still in their own homes at the end. Of course there are still plenty of irritating gaps, but then there seem to be more people noticing them now too, as the population in this county ages. So far, citizens and county both seem to be extending themselves to innovate methods of letting people stay in familiar surroundings much longer.
"See something, say something" works for more than just encouraging citizens to call the police over unattended packages in a train station! It works well for nudging us towards better eldercare, in times when we no longer commonly live in multigenerational extended family situations as was the case when I was a kid.
Maybe in rural areas now it's come to be like "see something, do something, say something" and that's okay too: the problem-spotters arrive with a few ad hoc solutions that can be used to build on when an effort is made to formalize the helping options in a community.
Anyway, 20 years ago, "Advocacy for the Aging" was probably a phone number hospitals had on their wallboards. Now it's a movement with its own means of drawing attention to problems of aging -- and helping to grow customizable ways of solving them.
All such "patchwork" caring does or can end up being less of a drain on both families and county resources, than if someone just gets plunked into a nursing home prematurely solely for lack of formal "assisted living" opportunities (or the means to pay for needed services).
I've seen these methods of extending autonomy work out for quite a few elderly neighbors, and was happy to see some of them end up in hospice care still in their own homes at the end. Of course there are still plenty of irritating gaps, but then there seem to be more people noticing them now too, as the population in this county ages. So far, citizens and county both seem to be extending themselves to innovate methods of letting people stay in familiar surroundings much longer.
"See something, say something" works for more than just encouraging citizens to call the police over unattended packages in a train station! It works well for nudging us towards better eldercare, in times when we no longer commonly live in multigenerational extended family situations as was the case when I was a kid.
Maybe in rural areas now it's come to be like "see something, do something, say something" and that's okay too: the problem-spotters arrive with a few ad hoc solutions that can be used to build on when an effort is made to formalize the helping options in a community.
Anyway, 20 years ago, "Advocacy for the Aging" was probably a phone number hospitals had on their wallboards. Now it's a movement with its own means of drawing attention to problems of aging -- and helping to grow customizable ways of solving them.
