3 Ways Assisted Living Communities are Like College

In the busy world we live in today the fact of the matter is it’s becoming less and less common for families to house their older relatives during the waning years of their lives. For this reason nursing care homes, senior retirement communities, and assisted living communities are becoming more popular. There are approximately 16,100 nursing homes in the United States today, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

It can be emotionally hard for a family to come to grips with the fact that the best option sometimes is assisted living homes of some kind, but the good news is they’re really not as bad as most people make them out to be. In fact, here are three ways in which assisted living communities can actually be a lot like college.

1. You Can Take Classes: Just like in college individuals who live in assisted living communities usually have a wide variety of classes available to them. Many places offer things like art, foreign language, and other interesting classes and programs to keep their charges entertained.
2. Great Social Environment: One of the best things about college is being in an environment surrounded almost exclusively of your peers and people with similar mindsets. There’s always something to do and new friends to make. Assisted living communities offer the same kind of opportunity, just to people 50 or so years older. Coincidentally, the ratio of men women is even somewhat similar as women are three times more likely to reside in a nursing home than men.
3. Best Years of Life: Many people tout college as being the best years of their lives and there is a lot of merit in that, but there’s something to be said about knowing it’s the last few years of your time on this earth. The right assisted living communities provide a great way to live out the last bit of life while you reflect on memories and a life lived.

With the industry expected to continue to grow over the next few years as more and more Baby Boomers enter the latter stages of life, it’s safe to say the quality and overall experience of assisted living communities will only get better.