Care for elderly is the need of the hour
S Vishnu Sharmaa, INN/Chennai, @Svs037
One shall not stay young always and that is where the need for care arises. Youth’s physical strength sees no need for dependence, but the ageing life does. This is the place where there is ample scope for assisted living, says Krishna Kavya, CEO of Athulya Assisted Living.
Athulya Assisted Living is a company into providing care for the elderly. About 10 percent of our nation’s population is expected to be around 60 years old by 2020, so we can say about two percent of the total population will be looking for assisted living.
This number will double by 2030, so there is bright scope for assisted living, says Krishna. Speaking further she reminds the changing social and economic conditions.
Job searching is not limited to your city alone, thanks to globalisation. It has spread to other parts of the country, has crossed the boundaries of this nation.
Youngsters leave their parents here and go abroad also in search of greener pastures. Elderly persons require care, company, medical attention, entertainment. That is what assisted living strives to provide, she says.
The atmosphere in assisted living is quite similar to that of your home and this what we have provided in Athulya Assisted Living which has three assisted living homes across Chennai.
Athulya Assisted Living, unlike regular senior living communities, revolves around support systems that take care of daily activities of senior citizens like reminders, dressing and bathing – the assistance largely being non-medical and non-nursing related.
Residents receive food throughout the day as per individual choices, connect activities that ensure social engagement, housekeeping, laundry services, etc. So it’s more home than most homes a senior could have lived in with support that turns aging life as good as an autopilot.
We began in 2016 with four beds, now we are nearly 100 beds. Athulya has centres at Mylapore, Arumbakkam and Perungudi in Chennai. Soon plans are to start assisted living homes in Hyderabad and Bengaluru also. Each will be a 100 bed facility.
Focus for us is urban centres as of now, for it here the need for assisted living is being felt more owing to factors like migration. As the time moves ahead we may to tier-2 and tier-3 locations too, as demand may arise from there also.
There are challenges too. It is mainly from conventional old age homes or senior citizen living homes. It could be a difficult decision to embark on assisted living as the misunderstanding of the term assisted-living for another regular retirement home.
Many consider staying in an assisted living quite similar to that of an old age home or retirement home. And, there is a need to change this perception. For, there is a difference.
Assisted living is like providing homely care, but life in an oldage or retirement home may not be that. But we have made a difference, right from care to infrastructure. We have ensured interiors are non-slippery, beds imported from Germany which offer greater comfort for elderly are installed in our assisted living centres.
We made efforts to position our centres in the middle of the city, so that medical amenities like hospitals can be easily accessed. Future plan is to expand our facility to a capacity of 5000 beds in next five years with a presence in 80 cities across the nation, she says.