90% of seniors want to stay home…is this a surprise??
90 percent of baby boomers say they want to age at home, not with relatives, in a nursing home, or at an assisted care facility.
By Laura Mitchell
REPOSTED FROM CEPRO http://www.cepro.com/article/whats_the_market_potential_for_home_health
April 16, 2008
According to AARP, when baby boomers are asked where they want to live as they age, 90 percent say, “In my home.”
They do not want to live with relatives, in a nursing home, or at an assisted care facility.
With this popular desire to remain at home comes great financial savings because every month a person stays in their own home as opposed to a an assisted living facility, that person can save $3,000 to $5,000 per month.
This leaves money available to invest in enabling technologies to keep seniors at home, safe and independent.
“Two-thirds of all men and women who have lived beyond the age of 65 in the entire history of the world are alive today,” according to Elizabeth Vierck’s “Fact Book on Aging.”
This includes 45,000 Americans over 100. In the year 2000, there were 35 million seniors, a figure that is expected to double by 2030.
By 2050 there will be more than one million people over 100 years of age. Americans over 85 are the fastest-growing segment of the population, according to the National Institute on Aging.
Families are assuming old-fashioned personal responsibility for aging family members, and they’re going back to the future to do it.
Facilities provide living arrangements to mimic family living, but more and more, seniors are actually “aging in place.”
Senior citizens fear moving into a nursing home and losing their independence more than death, according to a Clarity 2007 “Aging in Place” study.
The study also found that among baby boomers, 82 percent fear their parents will be mistreated in a nursing home, and 89 percent worry their parents will be sad.
Two-thirds of baby boomers said that financial problems were not likely to prevent their parents from remaining in their home, and 70 percent are concerned that their parent might be scared to leave their home.
While 49 percent of baby boomers are at least somewhat interested in using new technologies to help monitor their parents’ safety, 65 percent say they would like to use new technology, and 54 percent would consider sensors to monitor health and safety.
