Senior Living News & Events

If you’re a senior in your own home who’s planning ahead—or have adult children who have raised questions about your future—you may think that your choices consist of either staying where you are or moving into a nursing/assisted living community.

Not so! More and more of today’s seniors plan to age in place in a Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC). In these senior living communities, they enjoy independent living, meaning that they live in their own private townhome or apartment with minimal assistance for daily tasks. Yet residents still have access to dining, entertainment, medical care, transportation, housekeeping services, and more when they need it. Living in a CCRC can let you enjoy aging in place at its finest: aging in the right place.

Here’s how CCRCs let you have the best of all worlds.

1. Community staff do all the heavy lifting of landscaping, maintenance, and repairs. With a CCRC, community staff does all the tedious (and potentially dangerous) landscaping and maintenance tasks. Landscaping staff will take care of things like mowing the lawn, gardening, shoveling snow, cleaning gutters, and raking leaves. With a single phone call, you can get maintenance staff you know and trust to help you fix appliances, check your smoke detector, or even simply change a light bulb.

2. You can order meals from the kitchen when you don’t want to cook. Most CCRCs have on-campus dining rooms, restaurants, or cafés. Whether you’re out of key groceries or just don’t feel like cooking, you can dine out or order food to eat in your home. A high-quality CCRC will offer not only a variety of delicious, healthy dishes and special menus for every dietary need, but flexible dining schedules and meal plans for greater convenience as well.

3. No need to retrofit your home for safety; CCRC homes have safety built in. Rather than going through the research, expense, and inconvenience of installing aging-in-place home modifications, you can simply move into a space that already features smart age-in-place home designs. These include cabinets that reduce fall risks, showers with seats and grab bars, wide hallways for mobility devices, elevators in apartment buildings, single-story homes, and ramps and zero-grade thresholds.

4. Convenient medical alert systems are included in the cost of living. It’s great to live independently and do most things for yourself—but it’s also helpful to have a backup plan in case you have an accident or emergency. CCRCs typically provide medical alert systems within your monthly fee. These systems may include personal alert devices or easy-to-reach phones you can use to get help from trained on-campus medical professionals—fast.

5. Housekeeping and transportation services are at your fingertips. If driving or keeping up with housework has become difficult (or simply unappealing), you’ll have services to fall back on at a CCRC. Housekeeping and transportation services may cost additional fees, but you can generally get help with things like home care and laundry if you need it. You can also schedule bus or shuttle trips to run errands in your area or enjoy a day out and about.

6. CCRCs offer fitness programs and social activities to keep you healthy. In order to live independently for as long as possible, it’s essential to keep yourself in optimal physical shape and good mental health. To help you achieve this, CCRCs typically have physical therapists, exercise facilities, and programs designed to keep you active and strong as well as more resilient. They also offer plenty of social events and activities so you can avoid isolation, keep your brain sharp, and build new supportive friendships.

Live Independently Longer With Chapel Pointe

Chapel Pointe is a faith-based continuing care retirement community. We commit each day to serving and enhancing the quality of life for people aged 62+ in Central Pennsylvania. We’re honored that our greater community sees the servant-heart of our nonprofit organization and consistently selects Chapel Pointe as “The Best of Cumberland County.”

Nestled in eight beautifully landscaped acres in Carlisle, PA, our welcoming campus is filled with interesting places to explore and amenities that make life easy and enjoyable. Bird-watch from the gazebo, take a quiet moment in the chapel, curl up with a book in the library, join a friend for games in the sunroom, meet up for lunch in the dining room, take the shuttle for a scenic ride, or just pull up a comfortable chair and chat.

Since the beginning, our team's mission has been to ensure that every resident is treated with love and the utmost respect. Experiencing our core values—trust, integrity, faith, service, and innovation—lived out every day at Chapel Pointe reassures seniors that they are making the right decision by welcoming us into their lives. Contact us to learn more about our community or support our mission by making a donation today!