90% of Elders Want to Age in Place – Not move

Whether you’re young or old; whether you live in a tiny apartment or a 1 million dollar mansion ; for a huge number of reasons the familiar saying, “there’s no place like home” resonates with all of us.    But when we ask an older person to leave their home we are stripping them of more than the four walls that hold their belongings and it’s not just “memories” that are being threatened.

What we often fail to recognize when considering the move of a senior are the important intangibles that make a home, a home.  These invisible threads sew together the meaning of home, the meaning of personal belongings, the delicate balance between expectations and reality, and the need to have control over our lives, like shopping at the store you love. For a multitude of reasons, many of which we are not familiar with, most older people do not want to move and prefer to remain in their own home. In face according to AARP 90% of elders want to age in place. How can they do it successfully? We will look at this in the next blogs.