More Immunization in Assisted Living in Utah than Others
Posted by Kevin Taylor on Wed, Feb 02, 2011 @ 05:00 PM
Recent reports from the State of Utah Department of Health reveal that residents in long-term care, including Assisted Living in Utah, are more likely to receive influenza immunizations that seniors living on their own. This is great news for a few reasons.
Healthier
First, residents in Assisted Living increase their chances of avoiding the flu by getting properly vaccinated. This is a great thing, as influenza often turns more serious when the affected person has other immunity issues, as is often the case with seniors. Keeping seniors healthy up front is much better than fighting increasingly difficult diseases to bring them back to health.
More Frail
Second, the residents in Assisted Living tend to be more frail than seniors who continue to live on their own. The senior population starts at 65 years of age, not a very old group, while Assisted Living tends to server those aged 75 and better more frequently. In a way this study is making a comparison similar to saying that there are more mothers in their 40s having children than mothers over the age of 18 in general. It is truly amazing! (And, there is no study about older mothers, that was only created to show how the groups compare.)
Convenience
Third, with a more frail population in Assisted Living, they are also a group who would typically not get out to get flu shots if these were not brought to them. This is a benefit of Assisted Living: many crucial services are brought in–house to make them more accessible.
Seniors living alone need to make the trip to the drug store or their doctor to get a flu shot. Seniors living in Assisted Living need only make their way to a library or other common area of the building where the flu shots have come to them. If this level of convenience could somehow be available to seniors in their own homes it is likely that they would also get flu shots at the same, higher rate as seniors in Assisted Living.
So, what does this mean? Well, like the title of this blog says, seniors in Assisted Living are often healthier than their peers. This influenza vaccine example is only one way that can occur.
Photo by Flickr Dave