Study: Solo Seniors Rely on Informal Networks of Friends and Family for Assisted Living

Posted on by Devon Herrick
America is facing a long-term care (LTC) crisis. By some accounts, about 70% of adults over age 65 will need long term care at some point. The supply of LTC facilities is far too low to meet demand, a fact unlikely to change considering few Americans have LTC insurance. Furthermore, few Americans can afford LTC out of pocket. Estimates vary by region, but the average cost of long-term care is more than $100,000 a year. Memory care runs around $75,000 a year and assisted living is roughly $60,000 a year.
Women are far more likely than men to require long term care. Some estimates put the ratio of women to men at 9 to 1 in nursing homes. The reason is because men often have wives to takes care of them. Women, on the other hand, outlive their husbands and often have nobody to care for them as they become infirm.
According to long term care referral service, A Place for Mom, the average nursing home stay is 3.2 years, but 20% of nursing home residents will have to stay five years or longer. What accounts for the longer stays? Often it comes down to whether a frail senior has a support network of people who can help them age in place longer. Kaiser Family Foundation Health News reports that older seniors often rely on an informal network of friends, relatives and neighbors to help care for them.
The takeaway from a noteworthy study published by researchers at Emory University, Johns Hopkins University, and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai was this: Many seniors adapt to living solo by weaving together local social networks of friends, neighbors, nieces and nephews, and siblings (if they’re available) to support their independence.
These older adults must seek assistance from other quarters when they need it. Often they turn to neighbors, friends, church members, or community groups — or paid help, if they can afford it.
And often, they simply go without, leaving them vulnerable to isolation, depression, and deteriorating health.
A family member lived in her own home until age 98. She was pretty spry up until the last year or two at home. Once she moved into a long-term care facility her monthly costs shot up to more than $11,000. My relative’s secret to staying in her own home? Good genes and a retired daughter whose life situation allowed her to live with her. If my relative had no close family living near her, she would likely have had to move into assisted living not long after her husband died. As it turned out she was able to age in place, as it’s sometimes called, for eight years after her husband passed away before spending her final two years in long term care. Many seniors are not so lucky, both on the genetic front and in having family to help care for them.
When AARP surveyed people it calls “solo agers” in 2022, only 25% said they could count on someone to help them cook, clean, get groceries, or perform other household tasks if needed. Just 38% said they knew someone who could help manage ongoing care needs.
Many aging seniors have not planned for long term care needs, although some are in better situations than others. Church groups, family, friends can help create a network that can help in situations that are temporary, like when recovering from surgery. Many will find they need more care than friends and family can provide at some point. Friends and family members willing to help out, or even live with them for companionship and sharing tasks like cooking and cleaning, can allow seniors stay in their home years longer than they otherwise could. A few years ago, The New York Times wrote about how two or three seniors could even live together sharing around-the-clock home care cheaper than one individual in a nursing home. Many public health advocates want to expand home care, believing it to be the most efficient way to care for aging seniors. Some Golden Girls style living arrangements could make in-home care even more efficient.

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