Peristyle Residences Offers Appealing, Non-Institutional Assisted
Living Options To Seniors Resistant To Leaving Their Homes
Peristyle’s unique assisted living model, which allows seniors to remain in their communities while receiving the 24-hour care they need, is a needed alternative to the institutional senior living facilities many seniors and their loved ones wish to avoid.
Peristyle Residences
New Orleans, LA (PRWEB) May 30, 2013
Nearly 90 percent of people of the age of 65 want to stay at home for as long as possible, according to a survey conducted by the AARP last year—and many are insisting upon it. As of 2010, says the Administration on Aging, about 29 percent of seniors were living alone, and 47 percent of women 75 and older were living alone.
While many of these seniors are fully capable of caring for themselves, many are not: the Alzheimer’s Association estimates that 25 percent of seniors with dementia who live in residential communities live by themselves. For these seniors, living alone can be dangerous—in fact, according to a recently released University College London study, isolation and loneliness can shorten a person’s life—yet many don’t want to leave their homes, upset by the idea of abandoning the life they know to live in assisted living facilities. And now that the baby boomer generation, which represents a large segment of the American population, is growing older, this problem promises to become even more severe.
Peristyle Residences, which opened its doors one year ago, is addressing this increasingly pressing issue by offering an alternative to the institutional, often isolating, atmosphere of the traditional senior living facility in New Orleans, Metairie, Gretna, andHattiesburg. Each of the company’s assisted living residences, which are single-family homes located within residential areas, allow seniors to remain in their communities and retain the comforts of home while still receiving the care they require.
“All of our homes have only six to eight residents,” said Peristyle Residences co-founder Sean Arrillaga. “Beyond eight people, we feel it becomes less intimate, more institutional. We want our seniors, and their loved ones, to feel at home in our residences.”
In order to ensure residents’ comfort within each Peristyle home, seniors are each given their own private room, and they and their families are encouraged to decorate and furnish their room—as well as common living areas within the house—with familiar items. Licensed professionals and senior caregivers provide an array of stimulating activities for residents, including music, pet therapy, card games, bingo, and arts and crafts. Meals are reviewed by a registered dietician, prepared on-site according the each resident’s preferences and served hot.
In offering seniors private rooms within a residential house, Peristyle Residences offers a unique model of assisted living and senior care. New Orleans, Metairie, Gretna, and Hattiesburg are the only communities to have seen a Peristyle home open so far, but the company is growing quickly.
“Our goal is to keep renovating and opening new homes, especially since there’s already a shortage of quality senior living beds in many geographies and many New Orleans nursing homes and assisted living facilities, for example, have waiting lists. And it’s only going to get worse as the baby boomers get older,” said Arrillaga. “We hope to meet this shortage by opening up a lot more homes in a lot more communities. Seniors deserve the personal care, privacy, and sense of community that Peristyle offers, and we’re going to do our best to make sure that as many as possible get it.”
About Peristyle Residences
Peristyle Residences are residential assisted living homes in New Orleans, Metairie, Gretna, and Hattiesburg that provide care to seniors in a comfortable, luxurious and secure setting. Its small family of operators has over thirty years of healthcare and senior living experience, and its small communities foster the development of sincere relationships between caregivers and residents. Peristyle’s focus on community and personal attention make it a distinct and viable alternative to traditional senior living facilities.