– where later life is a positive experience

By Jan Garde, Founder & CEO, THE EMBASSIES

The world is undergoing a radical demographic shift. Almost 20 percent of people in the European Union are already over 65. By 2025, around 10% of the population of Japan will be over 80. The Earth’s population is ageing, quickly and dramatically. We’re living longer than ever before.

When I consider old age, I think: where will I live? I worry I’ll be institutionalised in a care home, because where else will I go? The connotations around senior living are mostly negative. Old age is a lonely limbo. A decline. The state before death. A waiting game. We are led to believe our senior lives are of little value — that as soon as we become old we are of little value, almost meaningless. Our knowledge is dismissed — knowledge developed across a lifetime! Our experience means nothing. We are forgotten and passed over. We are a burden — at least, we worry we have become a burden. Because physical health wanes in later life, we are encouraged to move into retirement facilities, institutionalised, away from the homes in which we have lived our lives, comfortably, the way we’ve wanted to, for years. The facilities resemble — let’s be honest — neither our homes nor five-star accommodation. …