Aging In the Right Place: Listening To Older Persons and Their Quest For Residential Normalcy
No Shortage of Housing Problems But Who Decides?
The housing and care accommodations older persons occupy often have problems making it difficult for them to age successfully—that is, to enjoy healthy, independent, active, and happy lives.
At least, that is the conclusion of professionals and family members who profess concern for their wellbeing.
They identify the following groups of old whose quality of life is at risk because of where they live:
In dwellings with financially burdensome monthly occupancy costs
In older and overly large dwellings with unmet repair, maintenance, and home modification needs
In physically inaccessible and unsafe dwellings because of their stairs, hard-to-reach places, slippery, uneven, and cluttered floor surfaces
In neighborhoods and communities where it isn't easy to access food, shopping, health care, and other necessary everyday needs
In unsafe neighborhoods and communities because of their traffic conditions or crime
In dwellings where they feel alone and socially isolated
In dwellings where they have unmet needs for homemaker assistance or long-term care services and supports
But older persons often disagree.
They evaluate where they live far more positively. They ignore or downplay these problems and claim that the benefits outweigh any downsides. They are reluctant or slow to address their so-called housing and care challenges.
Most (especially homeowners) are not motivated to move from their current dwellings to accommodate new lifestyles, downsize their accommodations, or transition to a family member’s home or a long-term care facility.
Getting into Older People’s Heads: Residential Normalcy as the End Game
So, how do we explain this disconnect? If older people require more help than they admit, we must better understand what motivates their assessments. Then we might offer them more persuasive counterarguments for why they should deal with their housing and care problems.
That is why I constructed my “residential normalcy” theoretical model.
Older persons achieve “residential normalcy” when they report overall positive feelings about the places they live or receive care.
The psychological writings that inspired the model showed that throughout the world, the emotional experiences of older persons explained their responses to all types of their lived-in environments.
I distinguish two categories of emotional experiences to gauge whether older people achieve residential normalcy.
The first, residential comfort experiences, reveals whether they feel that their dwellings, neighborhoods, and communities are pleasant, appealing, exciting, rewarding, enjoyable, and relatively hassle-free places to live. And they capture if these places conjure up positive memories linked, for example, with raising children, celebratory events, or accumulating treasured possessions?
When their more salient experiences in this category are overall positive, older people are in their residential comfort zones.
The second category, residential mastery experiences, reveals whether older persons occupy places where they feel competent, empowered, and in control of their lives, activities, and surroundings.
Can they conduct their everyday activities and care for their dwellings without too much assistance from others? Do they feel confident that they do not have to act in personally objectional ways?
When their more salient experiences in this category are overall positive, older people are in their residential mastery zones.
Striving for Residential Normalcy
In the best scenario, older persons are both in their residential comfort and residential mastery zones.
The theory predicts that these older persons will stay put or age in place and will be less motivated to make changes in their accommodations.
Conversely, when older people are both out of their residential comfort and residential mastery zones, they are more likely to initiate new home modifications or care regimens. If very stressed, they will contemplate moving elsewhere.
However, these decisions often are not so clear-cut.
Older persons often feel emotionally conflicted about the desirability of where they live.
They can be IN their residential comfort zones but OUT of their residential mastery zones.
Alternatively, they can be OUT of their residential comfort zones but IN their residential mastery zones.
The following examples help to illustrate.
Older people may be emotionally attached to their familiar homes, enjoy rewarding relationships with their friends or families, feel a sense of belonging with their communities, and enjoy their culturally rich cities. THEY ARE IN THEIR RESIDENTIAL COMFORT ZONES.
But at the same time, they experience difficulties paying their monthly housing costs, physically maintaining their dwellings, performing their everyday activities, negotiating their stairs, and getting to their suburban destinations. Consequently, they feel vulnerable, less capable, and that their lives are churning out of control. THEY ARE OUT OF RESIDENTIAL MASTERY ZONES.
Consider also these other very likely scenarios.
Older people feel that they live in places that are out of sync with their preferred retirement lifestyles. They experience their cold climates as unpleasant and their neighborhoods as socially inhospitable. THEY ARE OUT OF THEIR RESIDENTIAL COMFORT ZONES.
But despite these negatives, these same older persons feel secure and confident knowing that they live close to their shopping needs and doctors. More importantly, they feel empowered because an adult daughter lives but 20 minutes away and caters to their ongoing needs for assistance. THEY ARE IN THEIR RESIDENTIAL MASTERY ZONES.
These types of scenarios show how older people can live in places with split personalities. Their emotional experiences pull them in opposite directions. They find themselves negotiating an emotional battlefield, trying to achieve an impossible balancing act.
They are motivated on the one hand to make home modifications, hire caregivers, move, or transition to a care setting, but on the other hand to stay put, change nothing, and appreciate the positive qualities of their abodes.
How older people weigh the salience of their residential comfort and mastery experiences can profoundly influence their overall assessments and subsequent behaviors.
But in any case, it is hardly surprising that their feelings about and responses to where they live can be at odds with the emotionally detached assessments of professionals and family members.
A specific example of the divergent views of older people and professionals is informative.
The United Hospital Fund, a nonprofit organization in New York, reported that significant numbers of older people—including the financially able—had declined home care assistance designed to help them to remain independent in their homes.
Why so?
If they accepted this assistance, these seniors would be admitting to both themselves and others that they were vulnerable, frail, and dependent. It would be difficult for them to maintain the illusion of themselves as resourceful and capable.
If they accepted help, they would feel out of their residential mastery zones.
The Bottom Line
My residential normalcy model highlights the importance of listening to how older persons feel about where they live. It is crucial for those charged with maintaining the wellbeing of our aging adult population to understand both the positive and negative emotional experiences that drive their overall assessments of their dwellings, neighborhoods, and communities.
Although some older persons will unequivocally love or hate their housing and care circumstances, many others will have more nuanced feelings.
Diagnosing and helping them resolve their emotional conflicts will be critical if these older persons are to achieve residential normalcy—feeling overall positive about where they live.
Achieving this goal will require that professionals and family members propose compassionate and flexible solutions tailored to their distinctive lifestyles, personalities and capabilities.
Also Read: How A Resilient Older Population is Better Able to Age In the Right Places
About the author
Stephen M. Golant, Ph.D., is a leading national speaker, author, and researcher on the housing, mobility, transportation, and long-term care needs of older adult populations. He is a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America, a Fulbright Senior Scholar award recipient, and Professor Emeritus at the University of Florida. Golant’s latest book is Aging in The Right Place, published by Health Professions Press. Contact him at [email protected]
