The Benefits of Adult Day Care
Special | 2m 30sVideo has Closed Captions
For many, adult day care is a welcome alternative to a nursing home or home-health aide.
Many older adults want to stay in their homes and communities as they age, but for those who need more care, this option is out of reach. Adult day services, like those provided by FiftyForward in Nashville, Tennessee, offer community members a nutritious lunch and activity. Programs like these can also play a role in combating isolation and loneliness.
Aging Matters is a local public television program presented by WNPT
The Benefits of Adult Day Care
Special | 2m 30sVideo has Closed Captions
Many older adults want to stay in their homes and communities as they age, but for those who need more care, this option is out of reach. Adult day services, like those provided by FiftyForward in Nashville, Tennessee, offer community members a nutritious lunch and activity. Programs like these can also play a role in combating isolation and loneliness.
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Providing Support for PBS.org
Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship- [Gretchen] The aim of Adult Day is to keep people in the community as long as possible because we really believe older adults are part of the fabric of our community and no matter how you're aging there's a place for you in the community.
- [Narrator] That's what many older adults want as they age, to stay in their homes and their communities, but for the majority, it's out of reach.
In Tennessee, the average cost for a home health aid is $21 per hour.
Full-time that's more than $4,000 a month.
Nursing homes average more than $7,000 a month.
In an effort to close that affordability gap, adult day services at FiftyForward offers a sliding scale fee and grant funding to those who qualify.
It's also a lifeline for people like Bonnie Peters.
- Well that's part of the reason I started going to FiftyForward, was to get out and socialize with other people because I was confining myself just to me and Gizmo.
- [Narrator] Gizmo was Peter's emotional support dog, after he died isolation began taking a toll on Peters.
Limited human contact during the pandemic has only made things more difficult.
- [Peters] Loneliness plays a big part in it it brings you down, it messes with your whole health system, causes stress, anxiety, panic, and all of that when you get around other people because you're so used to just withdrawing into yourself.
- Really we empower the older adults to get from the day what they would like to get from it, according to their functional level.
So after a morning meeting we go into an activity like you saw, so it might be an arts and crafts activity, it might be trivia, it might be a physical exercise activity, it might be just a fun game.
Then we have a nice nutritious lunch, and that's very important we recognize the importance of nutrition as people age so that is built into our program as well.
- Let's give her a hand.
- [Caregiver] From start to finish.
- Awesome, Start to finish.
- [Caregiver] Very nice.
- The number of older adults is growing.
It's gonna become a bigger and bigger proportion of the country's population.
We need lots of different opportunities for folks, lots of different choices and the benefits of interacting with so many different people, as opposed to one in-home caregiver are really great.
(upbeat music) (crowd cheering) - Oh wow.
(upbeat music)
Aging Matters is a local public television program presented by WNPT