Seniors Advocate says cost main barrier for modifications to age at home

    Thursday, 17 April 2025 07:00

    By Tonya Organ

    The province’s Seniors’ Advocate released a report yesterday, titled “An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Pound of Cure.”

    The province’s Seniors’ Advocate released a report yesterday, titled “An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Pound of Cure.” Susan Walsh says it outlines research on what modifications and assistive devices seniors need to age well at home. She says survey results found that 87 percent of respondents agreed that “it is never too early to start preparing for your senior years”, 89 per cent acknowledged that it is likely they will require assistive devices as they age, and 76 per cent were willing to make the changes to their home. However, only 27 per cent of respondents had adjusted their home with the likelihood increasing with age. In fact, 53 percent of seniors over 84 years of age had made a change, suggesting the modifications were likely made from necessity versus from a preventative perspective. 

    Walsh says the main barriers to make proactive modification are cost (80 per cent), lack of knowledge on who to contact (52 per cent), what changes to make (37 per cent), and need for guidance on the changes (36 per cent).

    The report identified 4 recommendations to government.

     

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