Live a longer and healthier life in a retirement village or lifestyle resort with a range of services designed to make your life easier and keep you healthy
Retirement villages and lifestyle resorts provide physically and socially supportive environments to promote an independent, healthy quality of life. Offering age-appropriate accommodation, stable communities and ready access to health services, villages prioritise wellbeing with tangible results.
A 2013 survey of retirement village residents nationally found 32% of respondents reported improved physical health since moving into a village and 46% said the same for their emotional wellbeing.
The McCrindle Baynes report also found village living contributed to greater happiness with 49% of respondents enjoying enhanced social lives.
Ron Brown would agree. The 75-year-old resident at Baptistcare Gracewood in Kellyville in Sydney’s north-west, suffered a stroke 12 months ago.
He says if it weren’t for the amenity and support of his village he’d be living in a nursing home today. “I didn’t know if I would make it,” Ron says, “I had to learn how to do everything all over again. Gracewood played a significant role in my recovery,” he says.
After he returned from hospital, the village organised a house cleaner for him and his wife, Helen, and a driver to take him “anywhere I want” once a month.
“We live independently here but the difference is you can get help when you need it,” he says.The best part for Ron though is the sense of community at Gracewood.
“I can just go out the door and I’ll run into neighbours and I can talk until I’m worn out. When you live in a normal suburb everyone goes to work and you’re left alone at home.
“Here, it’s like being back in the 1950s, you don’t have to lock your doors, if you have troubles you talk to your neighbour, if you need to get somewhere, someone will always give you a lift. Gracewood is like (1954 musical) Brigadoon; it’s a magical place.”