Built In or Brought In: Senior Living Community Care vs. In-Home Care

It’s your choice, you know. You can decide to age in place and call for family and friends or professional home-care agencies to come to your side if you need assisted home care someday. Or you can decide to move to a senior living community that offers you its assisted living and memory care services.

The other choice is to make almost no plan at all, believing that you, along with family members, friends and neighbors, will be able to handle whatever life throws at you. You’re tough, and there’s always in-home assisted living services you can hire. Maybe you’ll be fine. Or maybe not. Why chance it?

Many people weigh the home-vs.-senior-living-community choice carefully, often engaging family and professionals to help them get the facts, sort through their feelings, and make up their minds. And most of the time, choosing a senior living community offers winning advantages.

Senior living community vs. home

Aging in place at home reassures. The familiar comforts, accustomed routines and often lower short-term costs, too — these make moving out feel undesirable. But the risks are considerable and increase with time. Isolation grows, and social isolation in older adults is now understood as a health concern. Home maintenance tasks and expenses can be burdensome. And when it comes to finding reliable, cost-effective, trustworthy care, you’re on your own. 

Plus, when those aging in place at home require care, it’s usually a developing concern, an emergent need, a pressing situation — a problem that demands fast response and resolution. Are you and your family ready?

Aging in a senior living community, on the other hand, already has many of the what-ifs settled. When it seems the tasks of your daily living are too much to handle, or if symptoms of Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia appear, the community readily responds with assisted living or memory care conveniently close on campus. You can easily keep in touch with your in-community friends and maintain your schedule. You’ll simply switch apartments. 

You can also expect all the benefits of senior living communities — the programs, scheduled activities, dining, fitness and wellness support, home maintenance services, and built-in social network. Isolation is all but impossible, and the friendships can be truly gratifying.

Bundled vs. hourly: How costs compare

Compare the costs for community assisted living vs. aging in place in the family home with in-home assisted living. You’ll see many of your monthly expenses are wrapped up in the community’s monthly fee. Routine maintenance, housekeeping services, the dining plan and all the other senior living amenities and services a community offers are included in your monthly rate in the community. When you’re aging in place at home, however, you’ll need to track those expenses separately.

Your senior living community can tell you today what your fees would be for assisted living or memory care. But you’ll discover that rates for in-home care vary by region and provider, and consultation will be required to clarify what you’ll pay for the at-home services you need. Those costs may increase over time, and a day may come where your health care needs surpass what the provider can offer in your home. A move to a residential assisted living or memory care setting will then be required — which is another reason to move to a senior living community before you’re in dire need of its services. 

Ever-present vs. hourly: How care compares

A senior living community is a 24/7 support system. Push a button and get an immediate response. In-home, 24/7 support is costly, and you may need to make renovations to accommodate a caregiver — renovations in addition to those you make for safety and convenience as you continue to live in the home.

If you don’t need around-the-clock support, you can arrange for part-time services in your home. And if your needs increase, you can renegotiate the arrangement for increased service. 

Your senior living community, in comparison, is always ready for whatever.

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It’s a worthwhile decision-making process

Deciding on your plan for contending with aging isn’t easy. Major life decisions usually aren’t. But planning now is a great hedge against regret later. You can stay in your house, making upgrades to ensure safety and accessibility for the coming years, and investigating available resources for in-home care, just in case you need it someday. Or you can turn your full attention to the senior living community lifestyle — with its anti-isolation bias built in — where freedom, opportunity and supportive care are ready now. Why not schedule a visit for a closer look and explore the possibilities.