SHELTER - taking apart Level 1

Hmmmm...  I didn't take issue with Kate McCarthy's take on the first level of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs until reading how she related Level 2 to elders.  The first line grabbed me - "Once physical survival is safeguarded the next rung up the ladder is security. "  It immediately made me think about shelter & the elderly.

A challenge for the elderly - especially ones dealing with some or many of the physical difficulties associated with aging - is feeling safe where they live.  John & I recently rewatched The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.  There is a scene where a young-old couple are being shown around an apartment designed for the elderly.  It featured waist-high hand rails for better ease walking around the apartment & an emergency call button in case of a fall.  In other words, it was fortressed, as best it could, against the dangers of old age.  Where is the sense of safety in that?  Each security feature is testimony to the fact that, for the elderly, even the place they live isn't safe.

It's hard for someone in Early or Middle Adulthood to fully imagine how that feels to an older person.  Where someone in their thirties or even fifties might see smart precautions, older people might sense future falls or other mishaps due to decline.  Not a pretty image.

That's true for people living in their own house, too - the home they cherish, where they raised their children, spent many happy years.  Steps they never gave a moment's thought to, shower stalls they used without thinking, even long-familiar kitchens - all can turn dangerous, even deadly.  In our home, there are five steps between the 2nd floor & the living room, with a steady handrail, and my mother still took a tumble & broke her hip.  Returning home from surgery & rehab, it took her months to work back up the courage to face those steps without at least one person's support.  
 
As for assisted living & other continuous care communities - however nice they are, with a remarkable range of services & conveniences, they can still feel to their aging & elderly residents more like prison than home.  I learned long ago to refer such apartments as their "place" - few feel like it's their home.  It's not unusual for clients to openly call their independent living apartments prison.  All of my clients have at least 4-room apartments - living room, bedroom, kitchen & bath - with nice views.  What children might see as both safe & attractive, oldsters & ancients can regard with horror as confined & cluttered.

And I wince whenever whenever someone tries to convince an older friend that he or she can entertain people "in your lovely apartment."  Where younger folks see three fashionable chairs & a sleek coffee table in a nicely appointed living room, older people see a room where they wouldn't be caught dead entertaining friends.  

Unlike today's more casual lifestyle, my older friends socialized over sit-down dinners in a dining room that was separate from the well-equipped, roomy kitchen & comfy living room.  None of that is at all recognizable in their current living space.  

One older friend moved from a beautiful home with a dining room that's roughly the same size as her current living room & bedroom area!  Her present living room is lovely, beautifully appointed, without the the stacks of mail & magazines common in many other older friends' places.  Would she ever consider having friends in for cocktails or bridge?  Heaven forbid - never!

In wrapping up her description of the 1st Level through an elder care prism, Kate McCarthy writes, "Although essential, meeting physiological needs is more about survival and does not necessarily ensure quality of life for the aged."   It's comforting to think the elderly, whether in their own home or elsewhere, feel truly sheltered - onto Level 2!  But...   Other than as protection from the elements, I doubt many of them truly do.  So, how do they get beyond that impasse so they can work their way up the hierarchy?  Because unless they do, they won't.