Cruise Ship Care Could Offer Retirement Alternative for Seniors
March 28, 2005
How would you like to spend your golden years? Floating on the Caribbean Sea, visiting Europe, touring the Panama Canal or the beautiful state of Alaska?
Sound impossible? Think again.
A Chicago geriatrician calculates that it could cost seniors only a couple thousand dollars more to spend the last two decades of their lives aboard a cruise ship than in an assisted-living facility.
Dr. Lee Lindquist, an instructor at Northwestern University School of Medicine, reports in a new study that life aboard a cruise ship for 20 years, double occupancy, would run about $230,000 compared with $228,000 for a similar stint in an assisted-living facility. These costs are even allowing for a few emergency shore visits to a hospital for serious illnesses.
With cruise ships already offering a wide range of amenities such as three meals a day, room service, entertainment, accessible halls and cabins, housekeeping and laundry services, exercise programs and physicians on board, Cruise Ship Care for seniors is not far-fetched.
"A cruise ship could be considered a floating assisted-living facility," explains Lindquist. "Seniors who enjoy travel, have good or excellent cognitive function and require some assistance with activities of daily living are the ideal candidates for cruise ship care."
Life aboard a cruise ship could offer a better quality of life than a nursing home or assisted-living facility where it can be hard to get away from the topic of aches and pains.
"Depression in nursing-home residents is estimated to affect as much as 25 percent of residents," Lindquist said. "Would you rather spend your days sitting in a lobby watching the same people go by or be on permanent vacation?"
The whole idea is to get older people away from that environment and out in the world with people of all ages. "That socialization," says Lindquist, "is key to the concept."
Lindquist, who published the results of her study in the November 2004 issues of the Journal of the American Geriatric Society, said she envisions the elderly mingling with regular transient passengers, but keeping the same cabins themselves for their extended cruises. Turn-over in company would be stimulating for seniors, and friends and family would enjoy visits, too!
Lindquist and fellow Northwestern University physician, Robert Golub, have proposed a model for this concept, 'Cruise Ship Care,' and hope to catch the imagination of cruise lines with their research.
While the idea of cruise ship care hasn't completely caught on yet, some seniors are already practicing a variation of this form of retirement. Nicknamed "serial cruisers," some older adults are taking as many as 20 to 30 cruises a year. If cruise lines jump aboard this idea, aging adults with an aversion toward facility living could be spending their golden years on a perpetual high seas adventure!
Meghann Porter
Sources Cited:
Bowman, Lee, AZStarNet.com, "Cruise Ship Living May be Elder-care Option," October 31, 2004.
Lindquist, Dr. Lee A. and Golub, Dr. Robert M., Journal of the American Geriatrics Society,
"Cruise Ship Care: A Proposed Alternative to Assisted Living Facilities", November 2004.
Vann, Korky, TheLedger.com, "Cruising Seniors Can Watch World Go By," March 27, 2005.
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