Following on from the aged care story above, the Commissioner, Lynelle Briggs, also said they are looking at ways to engage residents with exercise and the local community.
“I give that challenge to you what would really work to help elderly people to enjoy the last 10 to 15 years of their life – not just people in residential care but at home?”
Both here in Australia and internationally, retirement villages are emerging as the answer.
While they have been with us for 50 years, over the past five years most retirement villages have adopted the support of care into their villages.
They are doing this by coordinating home care services – especially good for residents who live on their own with no local family support.
The village manager – or the village office – is becoming a ‘care concierge’.
This often includes coordinating residents who act as volunteers to help other residents get to doctors appointments, put out the garbage and so on.
Most importantly, the resident provide social companionship, often by simply being people who walk around village and stop to say ‘hi’ and ‘are you okay‘?
Lynne Katzmann of Juniper Communities in the United States explained to her Australian audience last week that introducing a medical concierge into her 23 villages reduced hospital admissions by 50%.
Did you know there are more than 2,000 retirement villages in Australia? You can search our website, villages.com.au for one near you. Over 4,000 people do this every day.
