Aging in Place at Symphony Park

Most people want the same thing as they get older: to stay in their own home, surrounded by the people, routines, and comforts they know. But "aging in place" often gets treated like an all-or-nothing decision. Either you stay put and hope for the best, or you move into a community that locks you into a rigid path toward higher levels of care, whether or not you ever need them. There is a middle ground that many families never hear about until they start asking hard questions.

This article looks at what aging in place at Symphony Park actually means, how it compares to the traditional Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC) model, and how a different approach, one built around bringing care to the resident instead of moving the resident to the care, can offer more flexibility and more control over both your lifestyle and your finances.

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The Symphony Park Approach

Symphony Park is an independent living community. We do not operate onsite assisted living, memory care, or skilled nursing facilities.

Instead, we have created a different model for aging well: maintain your independence and your home at Symphony Park while accessing trusted third-party healthcare and support services right here in the community.

Through our relationships with Home Careolina, BAYADA Home Health Care, and Atrium Health One Health, residents have access to a network of personal care, rehabilitation, nursing, care management, and primary healthcare services that can be brought directly to them as their needs evolve.

The goal is simple:

Rather than automatically moving the resident to the care, whenever appropriate, bring the care to the resident.

This allows many residents to continue enjoying their own apartment, neighbors, dining, activities, amenities, routines, and lifestyle at Symphony Park while adding individualized support around them.

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A Flexible Continuum of Support

Aging rarely happens all at once. Needs often change gradually, and they may also change temporarily following an illness, injury, surgery, or hospitalization.

At Symphony Park, residents can layer additional services into their existing independent lifestyle based on what they actually need.

Fully Independent

A resident may begin life at Symphony Park needing no personal healthcare assistance at all.

They enjoy the benefits of independent living: their own residence, dining, housekeeping, transportation, social opportunities, wellness programming, amenities, and a maintenance-free lifestyle.

Healthcare continues much as it did before moving to Symphony Park, with the added benefit of having healthcare partners available within the community.

A Little Extra Help

When everyday activities begin becoming more difficult, Home Careolina can provide individualized assistance inside a resident's apartment.

Services offered by Home Careolina include:

• Bathing, dressing and grooming assistance
• Toileting and incontinence assistance
• Walking and transfer assistance
• Medication reminders
• Fall-prevention and safety assistance
• Meal preparation
• Light housekeeping and laundry
• Grocery shopping and errands
• Transportation
• Light exercise and activity assistance
• Companionship and social engagement

Home Careolina's stated goal is to provide the assistance seniors need to maintain as much independence as possible while remaining safely and comfortably at home.

At Symphony Park, "home" is the resident's Symphony Park apartment.

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Support Can Increase as Needs Increase

One of the most important advantages of this model is flexibility.

A resident may initially need a caregiver for only a few hours. Over time, care can potentially be increased based on individual circumstances.

Home Careolina offers care management, nursing services, transition care and 24/7 home-care options in addition to traditional personal care.

That creates the opportunity to build a personalized support plan around the resident rather than immediately requiring a move to a different apartment or care setting.

This is particularly valuable for couples. If one spouse begins needing additional assistance before the other, outside care may be brought into their Symphony Park home rather than automatically separating the couple into different levels of residential care.

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Care Management and Nursing Support

Aging in place requires more than simply having an aide available.

For residents with increasingly complex healthcare needs, Home Careolina also provides professional care-management and nursing services.

Its care-management services include medication education and management, nurse visits, chronic-disease and complex-medical-needs support, healthcare advocacy, assistance coordinating physicians and specialists, family caregiver education, long-term care planning, crisis management, hospital and rehabilitation transitions, and navigation of additional services when needed.

Home Careolina nursing services can also include:

• Medication management
• Chronic-disease management
• Wound and skin-integrity monitoring
• Vital-sign and clinical monitoring
• Diabetes management
• Tube-feeding and catheter care
• Ostomy care

This adds another important layer to Symphony Park's aging-in-place model: support can be coordinated around the resident instead of requiring the resident to coordinate everything alone.

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Rehabilitation and Therapy Without Leaving Home

A fall, joint replacement, illness, stroke, hospitalization, or other medical event does not necessarily mean a resident must permanently leave the community.

Through BAYADA, residents can access rehabilitation and home-health resources designed specifically to help individuals regain function and remain safely at home.

BAYADA's senior-living programs include physical, occupational and speech therapy focused on areas such as:

• Strength
• Balance
• Mobility
• Walking and ambulation
• Fall prevention
• Activities of daily living
• Cognition
• Swallowing
• Functional independence

BAYADA describes its senior-living approach as delivering therapy and healthcare services directly to residents with an emphasis on wellness, functional independence and the ability to age in place.

What This Can Look Like

A Symphony Park resident has surgery and returns home.

Instead of needing to relocate simply to receive rehabilitation services, therapy can potentially be provided right here at Symphony Park.

Physical therapy helps rebuild strength, walking ability and balance.

Occupational therapy helps the resident regain the ability to safely perform everyday activities.

Speech therapy may address speech, swallowing or cognitive concerns when clinically appropriate.

Additional home-health services may also be available when medically necessary and when the resident meets applicable eligibility and coverage requirements.

The objective is recovery in the environment where the resident actually lives.

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Primary Healthcare Right Here at Symphony Park

Another important component of the Symphony Park model is access to an onsite nurse practitioner through Atrium Health One Health.

Atrium Health One Health's primary-care services include geriatric care, preventive care, treatment of minor illnesses and injuries, and management of chronic conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol and thyroid disorders.

For Symphony Park residents, having scheduled access to an onsite healthcare provider can provide another layer of convenience and continuity.

Rather than every health concern beginning with a trip outside the community, residents have access to a healthcare professional right here at Symphony Park who can help assess concerns, monitor ongoing conditions, provide appropriate primary care, and help determine when additional evaluation or specialty care is necessary.

That creates an important connection between:

Independent living → Primary care → Therapy → Home health → Personal assistance → Care management

The resident remains at the center of the process.

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Supporting Residents Through Changes in Memory

Symphony Park is not a licensed memory-care community, and it is important to make that distinction clear.

However, a diagnosis involving memory loss does not necessarily mean someone immediately requires a secured memory-care environment.

Third-party caregivers can provide individualized assistance for some residents experiencing cognitive changes, depending on the resident's needs and ability to remain safely in independent living.

Home Careolina specifically provides services for individuals experiencing memory loss, while BAYADA identifies memory challenges, dementia and Alzheimer's support among the needs its senior-living services can address.

Support could include increased caregiver presence, assistance with daily routines, medication reminders, companionship, safety supervision and care management.

This does not replace secured memory care when that level of supervision becomes medically or functionally necessary. It does, however, provide another option for residents whose needs can still be safely managed in their own home.

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The Difference Between Symphony Park and a CCRC

A Continuing Care Retirement Community, or CCRC, is structured differently.

In North Carolina, a CCRC is defined as a residential community offering independent living with access to assisted living, nursing care or other health-related services under a continuing-care contract.

Typically, residents begin in independent living and, as their needs increase, may transition into assisted living, memory care or skilled nursing operated as part of the CCRC's continuum.

The CCRC Model

The resident generally moves through the community's levels of care.

Independent Living
↓
Assisted Living
↓
Memory Care and/or Skilled Nursing

The advantage is that multiple licensed levels of care are incorporated into the organization's long-term model.

The Symphony Park Model

Symphony Park takes a different approach.

The resident remains in independent living while additional third-party services are brought into the resident's home whenever those services can safely and appropriately meet the resident's needs.

Independent Living
↓
Add Personal Assistance
↓
Add Therapy or Home Health
↓
Add Nursing/Care Management
↓
Increase In-Home Support as Needed

This means residents are not automatically moving from one licensed residential setting to another simply because they need help dressing, medication support, therapy following surgery, assistance walking, chronic-disease monitoring, or additional support during the day.

Instead, those needs may often be addressed within the resident's existing home.

There is an important limit to this distinction: Symphony Park does not promise or provide the licensed assisted-living, secured memory-care, or skilled-nursing levels of care that a CCRC may provide under its continuing-care contract. If a resident's needs eventually cannot be safely or appropriately met within an independent-living setting, a transition to a higher licensed level of care may still become necessary.

The objective is to provide residents with the resources and flexibility to remain independent at Symphony Park for as long as it is safe and appropriate to do so.

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A Different Financial Philosophy: Keep Control of Your Capital

One of the most significant differences between Symphony Park and many traditional CCRCs is financial.

Many entrance-fee CCRCs require a substantial upfront payment in addition to ongoing monthly fees. National reporting has placed average entrance fees around $400,000, with individual communities ranging from approximately $200,000 to more than $1 million. exact amount, refundability and healthcare coverage vary considerably by community and contract.

Symphony Park Does Not Require a Large CCRC-Style Buy-In

At Symphony Park, residents do not have to commit hundreds of thousands of dollars to a traditional CCRC entrance fee simply to secure access to potential care they may or may not need years from now.

Instead, residents can preserve greater control over their financial resources and make individual decisions about care as their needs evolve.

Rather than putting your hard earned savings into an entrance-fee model, those resources can remain available to the resident and family.

That can allow residents to plan for and prioritize services specifically around their needs:

• Personal caregivers
• Private-duty assistance
• Nursing services
• Physical, occupational or speech therapy
• Care management
• Long-term care insurance expenses
• Additional healthcare expenses
• Increased hours of in-home assistance
• Other personal priorities

The philosophy is fundamentally different:

Don't prepay for a future level of care you may or may not need. Maintain control of your resources and build the support around you as your individual needs change.

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The Best of Independent Living + Access to Care

The choice does not have to be between enjoying true independent living today and planning responsibly for tomorrow.

At Symphony Park, residents can enjoy the independence, amenities, dining, social life, friendships and freedom that brought them to the community while knowing that a network of healthcare and support resources is available when circumstances change.

One Home. More Support When You Need It.

A resident may start with no assistance.

Later, they may add a few hours of personal care.

After surgery, they may receive therapy.

If managing a chronic condition becomes more complicated, nursing or care management may be added.

If everyday tasks become increasingly difficult, caregiver hours may increase.

And throughout that process, residents can continue accessing primary healthcare through our onsite relationship with Atrium Health One Health.

The apartment doesn't have to change simply because the resident's needs change.

That is the Symphony Park approach to aging in place:

Live independently.
Build support around you.
Bring care to your home.
Remain part of the community you love.

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Finding A Home at Symphony Park

Deciding how and where to age well is one of the most personal choices a family will make. For some, that means staying in a longtime family home. For others, it means finding a community that offers the independence, social connection, and maintenance-free lifestyle they want now, along with a clear path to added support later, without giving up control of their home or their savings to do it.

Symphony Park was built around that second idea. Through our relationships with Home Careolina, BAYADA Home Health Care, and Atrium Health One Health, residents can bring personal care, therapy, nursing, and primary healthcare services directly into their apartment as their needs change, all while continuing to enjoy the dining, amenities, and community they already know.

If you would like to learn more about how this approach could work for you or a loved one, contact us at (704) 351-6404 or info@symphonyparkliving.com, or schedule a visit to see Symphony Park in person.