The first thing you should know is that assisted living communities are not designed for older people, at least not the appearance. But before I explain, let me distinguish between older facilities and newer ones. Older properties were not built with the physical limitations of older people in mind. Anything over 15 years old was built like an apartment building. Very little consideration was given to the fact that the average age of the resident would be 85 years old, and the resulting limitations that these older adults were going to have. Little thought was given to the idea that this building was going to be full of walkers and wheelchairs and people with physical disabilities. Resulting in bathrooms that are too small, toilets that are too low, and they have tubs instead of walk-in showers. These older buildings also have high thresholds on the doors and along the hallways that are hard for seniors in wheelchairs to get over. The elevators are too small and the common hallways are likewise too narrow and lacking chairs or benches interspaced along their length so that seniors can pause and rest along the way.
Newer buildings, on the other hand, have been designed (in part) by Gerontologists, and have taken into consideration these basic design flaws that older building suffered from. That’s the good news. But builders of new buildings hired more than gerontologists. Newer assisted living communities (that’s the term they want you to use, instead of “facility”, which sounds too institutional), were built the same designers that build casinos and upscale resort hotels.
Here’s the surprise: Assisted living communities are designed to appeal to the adult children, rather than the seniors that will live there. Because they know that the adult children, if they don’t literally choose the facility, they are a big influence on which facility their parent(s) choose to move into. That said when you walk into a typical modern assisted living “community”, you will see fine furnishings, and deep comfortable chairs beautiful art on the wall and lot of knickknacks. You will be taken around to libraries, computer labs, perhaps a small gym, and an arts and crafts room. You will also see small sitting areas scattered here and there, there will be “country kitchens” or 50’s style “soda shop” kitchenettes. All of this will seem so inviting. However, what may not register immediately on you consciousness, is that nobody is using these wonderful amenities. That right. They are all for show. They seem wonderful to you. You, can easily picture yourself enjoying those things. That is what they want you to feel. But the people that live there rarely if ever use them. In fact there are only two areas that residents use: the dining room and the beauty shop. Outside of an exercise class or a bingo game, the resident do not avail themselves of the “extras”.
