Guest Post: Making Retirement Homes More Contemporary

Retirement housing is a hugely important part of the UK infrastructure as it gives a lot of support to the elderly population - to people who can’t be looked after by their family and need a little more help than they can give themselves.

As well as housing, this accommodation has to offer an action-packed weekly schedule to help ensure their elderly inhabitants stay mentally and physically healthy, yet a lot of us have a not-so-good image of what we consider retirement homes. There are often concerns that they’re stale environments that offer no real stimulation. Is this concern based on reality? If so, what kind of retirement homes should be offered in our modern and contemporary society?

Why is it important to stay contemporary?

Whether it’s an issue of staying modern and contemporary or just about quality of service, you decide. The problem is with this stale image that a lot of the activities can be very dull things like watching TV. These sorts of things, over prolonged periods have been linked to depression in older people, so is definitely something to be avoided. Conversely, varied and exciting activities can have really positive health benefits, so it’s important to get involved with them. 

Extra Care retirement villages offer contemporary retirement housing in the form of retirement villages which always focus on staying modern.

Sports and Exercise

We’ve moved past the generation of nothing but boules to an elderly population who want to be part of the same things as everyone else. There are a few aerobic activities that can be as gentle or active as you like, and help with things like hand-eye coordination, healthy arteries and enhanced neuromuscular protection. 

Tai chi is one of the main exercises which is commonly used in modern retirement villages. As well as the physical benefits of this, there have been links to improved mental health, hand-eye coordination and a number of other positive effects. 

For people that aren’t interested in tai chi there are still other sports and activities that use a similar amount of energy and are also beneficial.  

Embracing technology

We’re well past the days of elderly people being afraid of computers. So much of everyday life is now conducted online that it’s almost impossible to do simple things like staying in touch with friends and shopping without internet access. Modern retirement housing should look beyond lessons like ‘how to turn a computer on’ and ‘what is the internet’ and look at what people already know, and how they can build on that knowledge to make them the competent techies that they deserve to be. 

This is a partnered post.