Aging In Place

No one I know wants to move into long term care - not into assisted living or a nursing home. Governments do not want us moving into these facilities whether or not they are subsidized. For individuals it often means that your life and your control over it is diminishing drastically. For governments it means increases in costs and the problems of managing regulations that are never adequate for even the present issues. The answer to both sides of this conundrum is often simply to age in place. 

However… the opportunity to age in place successfully seems to to out of reach for many individuals and couples simply because of a lack of coordination of services along with a misalignment of funding. Often a crisis occurs and decisions need to be made quickly. Individuals have no time to look at a variety of long term solutions. They need immediate help with mobility, medications or diet or a combination of the three. The solution is often to move them to the first available bed in a nearby facility.  

An Ontario group is trying to change this. Their solution appears to be both cost effective and simple.  

A group of medical statisticians while reviewing Canada census information observed that there were many clusters of people over the age of sixty-five in many parts of the province. Often these groups were found in apartment buildings in urban centers. They coined the term NORC to describe these Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities.  As the medical people began to formulate plans to take advantage of the economies of scale these groups might produce, another concept began to emerge. This idea has the potential to transform the opportunities for seniors to keep control of their own destinies and ultimately allow them to stay in their present homes. 

Any building or area where at least seventy percent of the residents are over the age of sixty-five can be identified as a NORC. These groups might be in individual condo buildings or rental buildings or town houses or even clusters of homes in close proximity. Ambleside not only has many buildings that could quality as a NORC but the village itself is one large NORC. 

If a few individuals within one of these clusters were to create a group, or a committee, to formulate plans, they could interact with the seniors within their cluster and with health agencies, stratas, local governments and other businesses to make aging-in-place much more manageable over time. Plans could be put in place to help people who may need help in the future to live comfortably in their present home. Day to day inconveniences could be minimized; information and resources could be shared. Social isolation, especially during times of ill health, could be reduced. A group like this could join with similar groups in our area to let government know how best to support people who want to stay out of long term care. 

Here is a website which will show you how this could work: 

https://norcambassadors.ca/about/