What are seniors’ true feelings about care homes?

Removing a loved one from the familiarity and comfort of the only house they have known for years can cause depression. Aside from being a tremendous change, many seniors worry about moving into a nursing home because they regard it as a final step before the end of their life. This is typically true since they usually do not move back to their own house. Seniors have expressed feelings of loneliness, abandonment, and isolation, which are the primary causes of poor health among older adults. And for seniors with dementia, changing their location from familiar surroundings to a strange new place has been proven to lead to faster cognitive decline.

Seniors are accustomed to their routines; for example, they are no longer in control of what sort of food they eat in times of hunger, and instead, they are offered a limited menu several times a day. It is losing the sense of control and freedom that is bothering them; otherwise, the nursing home schedule is usually beneficial to their overall health, but the lack of independence might lower their self-esteem. There might not always be a good nursing home where you live, and long drives to visit them might get exhausting over time. Even when you are regularly visiting, they might still feel your absence. Even though the staff does their best to create a sense of community among senior residents, they are still not family.