Aging In Place Directory

17 - How Social Support and Community Choices Enhance Aging in Place

• Esther C Kane CAPS, C.D.S.

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How do longstanding friendships and a robust social network influence successful aging? Discover the profound effects of social support on mental and physical health as we share the inspiring story of my 102-year-old mother-in-law and her journey through changing communities and losing friends. We break down the crucial roles of emotional, practical, and informational support, illustrating how each type can lower blood pressure, improve heart health, boost the immune system, and keep the mind sharp.

Explore the essential aspects of aging in place effectively, from choosing communities with accessible amenities to leveraging modern technology like telemedicine and AI. Learn about the benefits of ride-sharing services, senior-specific programs, and the convenience of grocery delivery and home maintenance services. Additionally, we emphasize the importance of staying socially active and curious, offering practical advice on finding local activities and resources to maintain mental and social well-being. And don't miss our discussion on the growing senior demographic and the longevity economy, inspired by insights from the book "The Longevity Economy." Tune in for a comprehensive guide to thriving in your golden years!

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Speaker 1:

Hello everyone, welcome back to another podcast on Aging in Place Directory. This is episode number 19. Today's episode we're going to discuss the importance of social support and community resources when it comes to aging in place. That's one of the factors that a lot of older adults don't take into consideration is that whole aspect of having the community around them. I mean, you know, obviously, when you're 45, 55, 65, that community is there, your neighbors are still there, families nearby is there. Your neighbors are still there, families nearby, you know perhaps, friends and so forth. But as you get older, you know some may pass away, some may move to retirement homes or closer to their own children. So communities change around you and you have to acknowledge that that may happen while you're aging in place in your own home. I know my mom-in-law, who lived to 102, said that that was the most difficult thing for her to deal with was the loss of everyone At 102. Every family member that she had was gone, and friends as well. So I know that that can be extremely difficult. All right, I'm Esther Kane. I'm a retired occupational therapist, certified aging in place specialist, and I am a co-owner of the Aging in Place directory where we match, you know Aging in Place specialists can post their business listings, their names, their contact information, everything so that the community throughout the US and Canada people can find them. Families and seniors can locate specialists near them, be it a contractor, a designer, a builder, an occupational therapist, a physical therapist Anyone with certification in Aging in Place services can definitely join the directory. So check it out aginginplacedirectorycom. All right, so let's get to the podcast.

Speaker 1:

There's different types of social support, I do have to say, and they all play obviously an important role in keeping us healthy and, you know, in a good state of mind, just like anything. I think that the social support and community resources are like external vitamins. You know you take care of your body by hopefully eating right and taking your medicine and vitamins. You know whatever it is that you need to do to take care of your body, but mentally, that is where social support and community resources come in to take care of that. So there's three different kinds of support. There's my cat. Different kinds of support. There's my cat. There's emotional support, the kind that comes from talking to someone who listens, who cares, who understands. Whether it's a phone call with a close friend or a conversation with family member, these interactions really boost our mood and mental health. I mean, there's a reason why people like to go out, you know, for a drink, for lunch, for coffee, whatever. For you know, to go to church, volunteer organizations, the park, anywhere where there are people. When I lived in South Florida, the front benches in front of the grocery store at Publix, the grocery store were always filled with seniors. Not that they were necessarily speaking to each other or congregating, but they were amongst people and I know my mom-in-law would tell me that a lot of people in her community that she lived in would do that. They would go to Publix just to be around people and they would hope someone would talk to them.

Speaker 1:

Now there's also the second type of support is practical support, and that's where we get help from others when we need assistance like cleaning the house or taking care of the house or taking care of our daily selves or taking care of our pets you know the lawn, anything like that. Practical support, driving you to places, taking you to doctor's appointments, anything like that that's practical support and that could come from friends. It could come from family practical support, and that could come from friends. It could come from family, neighbors, anyone like that, who could also be your friends and to provide you with that social support as well. And then there's informational support, which is mostly from the professionals in your life your accountant, your financial planner, your physician, your physical therapist, occupational therapist, your mental health counselor, you know, your minister, priest, rabbi, whatever. That is informational support, where you're get, where you can go to to get data, to get information, to get data, to get information, to get advice. Well, at least sage advice, educated advice. You can always get advice from your friends, but it may not be educated advice.

Speaker 1:

So why do friends matter so much? Why is losing friends such a big part of depression and isolation in older adults? It's important because you first of all a lot of friends you've created ties with. I mean, I have friends that I've been friends with for 50 years now or more my goodness, more than 50 years and knowing people for that length of time, they know you, hopefully, and you know them hopefully, and you've shared a lot of events in your life uh, good, bad, trauma, you know elation, everything. So you've lived through an event, you've lived through these events and through these times and that, of course, is going to bring you closer. So those types of friends are the friends that give you the most support and those are the ones that you trust the most. Because, let's face it, building trust takes time and you know, you know, as you get older you can certainly make new friends, but they're probably really more like acquaintances than friends, simply because you haven't known them that long and you may not know them that long Now.

Speaker 1:

The reason that having now, the reason that having you know good friends and having all those types of support is good for you, is multitude one. It's good for your body. There are many, many studies that show that. You know the having those types of relationships in your life, you know, lowers your blood pressure, healthier hearts, stronger immune system, sharper minds and probably because they get you out, they get you up and out. They may, you know, tell you you shouldn't be eating that fried chicken. You know they are, they're looking out for you and having that accountability with someone else can definitely help to make you healthier. Plus, just knowing that they're there, knowing that there's that support system there, goes a long way in making you calmer, less stressed, less anxious, and of course, that feeds into all the organs in our body. Having friends and a social support is also good for your mind, I mean mentally. It's great for your brain. Older folks have a lot less friends and they those tend to isolate themselves and get more into their head and depression and rumination and anxiety, whereas older adults that have lots of friends around them, lots of people around them, they are less likely to feel sad or worried because they have others to rely on, to lean on, and vice versa. And that's really what it's all about and that's why a community is so very important.

Speaker 1:

Now. If you're aging in place in a rural area, that makes it more difficult because, yes, you have your core group of friends at the church. You know relatives maybe, but as you grow older in your home in a rural community, oftentimes those friends move away, pass away. The congregation at the church changes it's. It's different people. You don't know them as well. You haven't had time to meet with them for years as you did with others, and so it's much more difficult for someone in a rural area. I'm not saying you have to move, I'm just saying that's one of the things you have to think about if you're planning to age in place in a rural area Now, having good mental health and having good physical health of course leads to usually leads to living longer.

Speaker 1:

So having this social support can actually contribute to a longer life. But it's not just having a longer life, it's having a longer, healthier, happier life. I mean, who wants to spend the last five years or so of their life in a debilitated state, in chronic pain? Nobody wants that. So you want to live as long as you possibly can for as happy and healthy as you possibly can. Now there are many different ways that you can make and keep your friends. You know I have a lot of friends myself and I work very hard at maintaining that friendship. You know I check my book to make sure. Okay, who haven't I seen or spoken to in a while? Let's go get some coffee or lunch or just spend some time together anything, a walk, anything at all.

Speaker 1:

But you want to try to keep including those people in your life and, yes, sometimes it just takes a little bit of work. You have to make time for them and they have to make time for you. Um, it's not always easy to, you know, pull everything together, but you do want to try. So, if you feel that you're the only one calling or you're the only one making the arrangements. Obviously, ask them do they really want to get together with you, um, and if they do, if they just are busy or forgetful or they have a lot of other issues going on in their lives, you just keep doing it. It doesn't matter. It's not a tick for tack type of relationship.

Speaker 1:

Friendships are not 50-50, just like in marriages or any other relationship, you give what you want to give to your friends and you hope that they can give you. I always say don't blame people for what they cannot give you and accept them for what they can give you, because everybody has their moments. You know years sometimes where they're busy taking care of their parents and their children. They don't have time to spend time with friends. Or if they're busy, you know, tending to some medical issues in themselves or in their family. You don't know. Anything can be happening, of course, but you want to be there to help, you do want to know. So I guess you can be a little bit of a badinsky badinsky and ask and say listen, I want to help, I want to. You know, do what I can to see you, but if you need some help with anything, please, I'm here. All right, you want to join clubs. That's a great way to make acquaintances that possibly could turn into friends and, of course, the clubs would be of your interest. It could be anything from a book club to a gardening club to a drone club. To you know something at your church or your temple or the library community center, something that you create. Maybe you enjoy growing I don't know ferns or lilacs or whatever. You could create your own club doing that you want to volunteer.

Speaker 1:

Volunteering is a huge way to not only connect with your community and to see what's actually happening outside your front door, but it's a great way to connect with people who want to do the same thing that you want to do for the same cause. It could be a cause for, you know, children or seniors, or hearing impaired or blind or anything at all. You can definitely volunteer. Now there's also singular volunteers. My mom-in-law lived in a retirement community where there were thousands and thousands of units there in South Florida so if you've been there you know what I mean and there were individuals in that community who volunteered themselves as drivers to drive the others in the community who perhaps couldn't drive anymore or had low vision for whatever reason, or were completely blind and needed a driver, and these people volunteered and became their drivers. So that's a great way to connect with your immediate community.

Speaker 1:

You don't have to necessarily join a group. If you live in a, let's say, a rural area where there aren't any opportunities for group settings, think about getting a pet. Pets can be amazing as long as you can take care of them, as long as it's the kind of pet that you can care for. I think, as you're, as an older person, it's not very good to get a large dog, because it's just so easy for that dog to pull you and you fall. You lose your balance, fall and you can injure yourself. Of course, it's not the dog's fault, it's just a big dog. So you want to tailor the pet that you have, be it a cat, a bird, a dog, you know, monkey, I don't know. You want to tailor it not only to your home environment but to your lifestyle and to your physical capabilities.

Speaker 1:

And also don't forget to use technology like Facebook and Alexa and you know anything that you can use to stay in touch with those family members and friends and anyone who's moved away. You know I now have friends all over everywhere, multiple countries, because people move, you know, for jobs, for their children, all kinds of reasons. But with Facebook and Zoom and FaceTime and whatever Alexa, we can still stay in touch and keep up to date in each other's lives. And if it's a really good friend, you know you can go a year or so without speaking to them, but then when you do start speaking, it's as if no time has gone by at all. I'm sure a lot of you have experienced that.

Speaker 1:

So in your community, what can you look for to socialize? Where can you go? There are a lot of wonderful community resources, usually in a lot of different areas. In my immediate area I live in a cluster home community, so the homes are close by, so you do tend to know your neighbors, so you do tend to to know your neighbors. We have three parks that we are connected to, so it's very easy to walk to these parks. We have a center where we can walk to and there's restaurants and shops and arena there not arena, but like a little stage where they do events and shows and they hold festivals there. So that's a community, an immediate community, that you can easily be involved in. You can join the HOA or create a club within the community of others that also live in that same community. It makes it so much easier to get to things, especially if you're older and you have trouble driving. But then there's also outside areas senior centers, where they have a lot of activities and classes. Just up the street from EMILE there's a beautiful park, a large park with a community center there and they have classes there and lectures and you know political events and all kinds of things that you can go to, and actually that's where we all go to vote, exercise classes and sometimes blood draws. You know all kind blood donations, blood draws, all kinds of events around.

Speaker 1:

Now I'm fortunate, I purposely chose this specific area because it had all of these and I knew that I wanted to age in place as much as long as I could in this particular home. So I want, I needed something that I didn't have to drive to, and that was the only reason that I chose this area. So, yes, you may have to move to actually age in place, but if you are going to stay in the home that you've been in for many years, you want to make sure that you can get to these community events. But nowadays that's actually quite easy because there's Uber. There's Lyft, you know. There's several ride share programs. Communities even have some senior ride share programs. So for less money than the cost of a car you could go an entire year most likely and use an Uber or a Lyft to get to parties and events and all of that.

Speaker 1:

And don't forget the libraries. I know these days everything is on the Internet and everybody's searching for things on the Internet. But hopefully you have a vibrant library in your area and that is a wonderful place to have events and to go to events. You know I did a Toastmasters Club meeting there and then some other meetings as well. It's a great place to go to be quiet. They're usually very nice, they have great reading areas and just. It's just a nice place to go, especially on very hot summer days when you don't have if you don't have AC or your community is having trouble with electricity. I know that there are parts of Texas that tend to have that sometimes. So perhaps if you can get in the car and drive out of that area and get into a library, that might be helpful Anything to save yourself and get hydrated from that intense heat that the country's been having this year.

Speaker 1:

And then there's actual services like meal delivery services, amazon. You can pretty much get anything delivered to you from Amazon. There are things like Meals on Wheels, misfits Market all kinds of programs that either deliver meals completely made and all you have to do is heat them up, or they deliver the food where then you can just cook it. I just recently joined a Kroger delivery program. You pay $60 a year and you can put in your order online, and if you're getting your item delivered the next day or the day after, then it's total, it's free, there's no delivery charge, and I have to tell you I'm actually spending less on groceries because I'm not impulse buying at the grocery store. I'm just buying what I need. So my grocery bills have actually been cut in half. So was it worth the $60 a year? Absolutely, so check it out if your grocery store has something like that, or if you happen to live near a croaker.

Speaker 1:

There also are services that you can get, like for your yard, for home, you know, cleaning your home, taking care, maintenance of your home. I would urge everyone that, if possible, to get things like your hvac maintained uh, you know, a central ac and heating uh, pest control, termite, you know, control, whatever it is that you need in your specific area of the country to keep those services going. You know, hopefully your budget can allow it because it takes it, keeps the home well maintained so that you don't have to spend more money to fix up what went wrong after it, you know, lost its value and roof came down or who knows what because we all know that homes can fall apart quite quickly. So you want to maintain them as much as you possibly can. And, of course, if you need service, services of a maid once a month would certainly be better than nothing and it's certainly worth getting the home clean and, you know, sanitized sanitized, really, at some point because as you get older, you tend not to realize how dirty some things are. Okay, technology, as I said, is an absolute blessing to us. These days, we can not only connect with our friends and family, but we can also connect with physicians, and now there are even devices you know diabetic devices, blood pressure devices, cardiac devices that are connected you know, wi-fi wise directly to your doctor's office, so they get the reports immediately of what's happening to you. It's really amazing. And the technology of AI that is coming around the corner, it's just scratched the surface. We are in the Model T era of AI. It is going to be exploding, especially in health care, in the next several years. Exploding, especially in health care in the next several years.

Speaker 1:

I am just finishing reading a great book called the Longevity Economy. I urge you to check it out. It's amazing the wonderful things that are coming out and how the economy is going to be shifting because of all of this. Now, remember there's 10,000 people a day turning 65, and that's going to continue until 2030. That's just the baby boomers, and then, after that is the next generation what is that? The millennials? And then they are going to be in that senior age group. So, pretty much for the next 20 years or more, we're going the country america and canada are going to be enveloped in this senior um society. So you're going to be seeing a lot of ads for medication and you probably already do a lot of products, resources, services, all kinds of things for seniors, and Aging in Place is just one of them. It's one of the reasons why we created the directory, because it was difficult to find all these different services that you need to to do what it is that you needed to do in your home. So, but, yes, the longevity economy, check it out.

Speaker 1:

So how do you find these resources? Well, I would say, initially, obviously, look in your local newspaper. You know, just drive around your own community, call your local area on agency on aging area on agency on aging. Obviously you can ask your doctor or therapist, ask your friends, accountant, anyone in your area, their ideas. Do they know of any places, even if it's a yoga center, a meditation center, anything like that? Your churches, your temples? You may not want to go to their events or their organizations, but they may have connections to other organizations that you may be interested in. You know anything photography, taking up photography clubs at the Sierra Club, you know they have a lot of photography hikes, anything like that.

Speaker 1:

Go bird watching, you know, create your own group, anything like that, to get out and enjoy and learn, because while you're out there and learning to use a new camera or a new smartphone or oh no, I just completely blanked out on the word a droid, yeah, droid, you're challenging your brain, you're stimulating it and you're hopefully, you know, building brain cells to fight off things like dementia and Alzheimer's. And then, of course, course, visit the library. They usually know everything, they have a pulse on everything that's happening in the community and if you're taking care of an older person, you know, remember to help them to get socially active. Don't forget about yourself. I'm not saying to forget about yourself, I'm just saying if you notice that there's a parade coming to town next weekend or whatever you know, let your older family members know that that's happening. Maybe you can make a family event out of it, or at least let them know that it's coming up.

Speaker 1:

All right, before we wrap up, I want to share a few tips on staying socially active and connected. One, the very first thing I'll say, is to stay curious Always, always be open to learning new things and to meeting new people. My father-in-law was the most curious man I ever met in my life. I mean, he was curious about everything in life and it was amazing and that's why he lived well into his 90s and that curiosity kept him active. I mean, he worked until a week or two before he passed away. He just kept on working because he was so interested in his work and the new you know evolutions, the new things that were coming out in his career. It was quite amazing. He was amazing.

Speaker 1:

You want to be proactive, you want to take the initiative to reach out to friends and family. Don't wait for them to come join you. As I said at the beginning, it's not a tick for tack type of thing. You want to be proactive. It doesn't matter if you called them the last 50 times, call them again, keep doing it, and if you feel that you know they maybe are not wanting to do it, be up front with it. As we get older one of the things that I like to say now that I'm you know well into my 60s I'm 66 I say you know I have x number of days on the planet. I don't want to waste it on people who don't really want to hang around with me, so you shouldn't either. So be up front. The worst thing can happen is that you don't uh, you make another friend in place of them.

Speaker 1:

You want to get involved, join clubs, volunteer, participate any way that you can, and you want to embrace technology, because it's not going away. You know, buy that new television set, learn to use that new remote. You know, figure out how to. You know watch plethora of YouTube videos. There's so many YouTube videos on so many things. And if your YouTube video isn't enough, you know, grab a young person that you know They'll teach you, hopefully, and you can learn that way. Or take classes. There's so many wonderful, great classes. I think Apple also has a class for seniors, I'm not sure. Check it out. And, of course, don't ever, ever be afraid to seek help. If you need help with your laundry, with maintaining the home, the yard to you know yourself, cooking, getting to the bank, anything at all, don't be afraid to ask for help, because everyone needs help every now and then and, honestly, I think we all need help all the time.

Speaker 1:

So this was a long podcast. Well, I hope that it was informative. I hope you were able to learn a few things or two and, if so, if you need to share it with senior loved ones, feel free, of course, to share the podcast. Sit down with them a glass of wine, cup of coffee, vodka, whatever and listen to the podcast and talk about it. You know, discuss it. What's important to you, what are the values in your life and how are you going to keep yourself active emotionally, physically and mentally? All right, feel free to subscribe we are so grateful for each and every single one of our subscribers and, of course, share our podcast. Give us a like, give us your comments, let us know what you think and I look forward to reading them. All right, catch you next time. Thank you so much for listening. Bye.

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Esther C. Kane, CAPS, C.D.S.

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