Keeping Your Independence In Your Old Age

We start out in life completely reliant on our parents to simply survive. For the obvious reason that as babies we are not self sufficient. However, as we go through our childhood we learn independence and the ability to be able survive independently, and solve problems on our own. We have mostly developed this skill by our late teens and for the rest of lives we will live our lives independently and it is something that is second nature to us.

After living an independent life this is something that as we enter our senior years we don’t want to give up our independence and the truth is that is totally understandable. For all lives we have made decisions about our lives without having to ask anybody else. Unfortunately as we enter those later years of our life we start to go backwards and we need to rely on family or friends to possibly stay in our home. This is usually because as we get older we become less mobile, we could be prone to falls. We simply become less capable than before of carrying out those everyday tasks that we did with ease in our younger years.

If during your life you were married and had children, because of the way the world is today, there is every chance that your children have moved many miles away so you have lost the support mechanism of family living nearby. A good to way to help you live independently in your home is to consider moving closer to family. This could be quite an upheaval for a more elderly person so it’s important to find someone such as Berkins Moving Solutions to help the move nearer to family go as smoothly as possible.

Once you’re living nearer to family then you have the support to carry on living independently in your home, because they can call around on a very regular basis to check on you and to make sure you are coping ok and help out with such things as the cleaning, shopping or other household chores or maybe to just sit down with you to have a cup of tea and a chat.

Another advantage of living close to family is you will be able to join in family celebrations such as birthdays, Christmas and be involved with your grandchildren’s lives.  Of course, your family can’t be around all the time, and when they are not you may want to purchase an alarm that can alert your family if you ever need help.  Fall alarms and personal alarms are cheap and effective and can give you and your family peace of mind all year round.

You may have a special milestone birthday to celebrate and if you are still living in your own home you can invite all the family around to celebrate that special birthday with you. You can order in all the party food and a birthday cake and don’t forget those special occasion wines to celebrate that milestone birthday in your home surrounded by a loving family.

With the right support there is no reason that you can’t live out your entire life independently in your home. It could be that you need to live near to family or have meals and shopping delivered to your home. There are many ways that our senior citizens can stay in their home independently for all their life.

Do you have an senior member of your family living alone independently? I would love to hear your experiences in the comments below.