How to Help Your Parent Adjust to Assisted Living

The step in a senior’s life when he or she relocates to assisted living is often emotional and frightening. The difficulty accepting a new residence can have adverse effects on her mood and physical health. As a loved one, it is your goal to make transitioning as pleasant as possible to avoid problems that come with the adjustment. You can help adjust to assisted living a success when you take the following steps:

• Visit the complex a few times before making the big move. Facilitate her getting to know the primary caregivers and the residents with whom she will live. Encourage her to make connections with the people who will become important in her life and begin socializing with them.
• Review the center’s activities with your loved one. Take a look at the schedule and highlight the events that are of interest. Post the itinerary where she has easy access to it. Plan to join her for particular happenings to help increase her anticipation and pleasure in them.
• Facilitate communication with people she most enjoys. She should have her own phone with a charger she can access easily. Program in the contact information for the people she most frequently calls. Record other phone numbers for other family members, friends and associates in a notebook she can keep at her bedside.
• Help your loved one decorate her new space. Assist her in moving some of her favorite things to her new residence. Include hobby supplies if possible such as scrapbooking items, adult coloring books or modeling materials. Balance things so some are soothing and others more stimulating.
• Add music to her environment. Choose a system that does not take up much space but, at the same time, delivers good rich tones. Encourage your loved one to develop playlists that reflect her personal taste and add in some new songs periodically to keep it from becoming stagnant.

Your loved one’s happiness in her new living arrangements is extremely important to you. Talk to her early and often to help you deal with the feelings that come with transition. Identify the big and little things which will help make her adjustment gentle and rewarding. Discover more about good senior living when you contact us.