Owning a home is part of the American dream and many people work their entire lives to own and maintain their homes. Depending on the type of home, whether it is a two story Victorian or one story ranch, some homeowners may face difficulties getting around their homes as they age. It is common for people to develop mobility issues as they get older and these issues are often what causes some homeowners to give up their homes for a retirement or assisted living community. However, remodeling contractors that provide aging-in-place services can help remodel homes to suit the specific needs of aging homeowners so that they can spend their golden years in the homes that they spent their adult lives working to achieve.
How Aging in Place Services Can Help
There are a variety of ways a home can be remodeled to accommodate for various handicaps and cases of limited mobility. This may include widening doorways for wheelchair accessibility, installing home elevators or chair lifts in multi-story homes, or making home bathrooms ADA compliant. The goal of these services is to make the home safer and more accessible to its residents so that they can continue to live in their homes and avoid giving them up for a nursing home or retirement community.
Aging-in-place services begin with an in-home consultation between the homeowners and remodeling professionals to determine the specific needs of the homeowner. As these needs are discussed, the remodeling professional will create a plan to accommodate their needs within the budget of the homeowner. Every aging-in-place project is unique to each homeowner and while these projects do involve the installation of products such as stair lifts or elevators, they should be thought of more as a service. Aging-in-place specialists have extensive knowledge of these modifications and how they can help make homes more accessible for people with various conditions.
Why Aging in Place
The biggest benefit of aging-in-place services is that they allow elderly homeowners to continue living in their homes for as long as possible by making the home safer and more accessible. With these services, seniors can enjoy the fruits of their working lives by aging in the homes they earned themselves without being forced to give them up for a nursing home.
In addition to fulfilling the desire for seniors to live out their golden years in their homes on their own terms, aging-in-place services can also help save seniors and their family time and money. Selling a house can be quite a hassle and when a family is trying to sell a house while also paying for senior family members to be in assisted living, the situation can get difficult and expensive. Aging-in-place services can spare families the difficulty of trying to simultaneously sell a home and make sure their family members are accommodated in an assisted living community as well as save money in the long run by avoiding the fees and potential loss from selling the house while also continuing to pay for assisted living.
If you or a family member plan on staying in your own home but are beginning to have difficulties getting around the house, then accessible home design may be the best option. Certified aging-in-place specialists can incorporate products such as chair lifts and elevators into a redesign of your home to make it safer and more accessible so you do not have to give up your home. If you would like to learn more about how these services could benefit you, call Patrick A. Finn, Ltd. at (847) 358-4133 to talk to an aging-in-place specialist.
