The Search for Senior Living: A Look at the Independent Search Persona

The journey into senior living is often a challenging one for older adults and their families, filled with intricate financial, legal, emotional, and familial threads. Yet, recent statistics point toward a surprising pattern: the majority of families are choosing to charter this course solo, foregoing the free resources that are readily available to guide them through the process.

A Seniorly survey of over 2000 respondents shows that almost 60% of site visitors are planning to manage the search for senior living independently.  This despite the fact that Seniorly - and others - offer free services in the form of professional senior living advisors. In an effort to better understand and support this demographic, Seniorly analyzed the data.

So, who are the prospective residents for whom the independent searcher is looking? As a whole, 41% of prospective residents in this group are aged between 75 and 85, slightly younger than the 50% of assisted living residents older than 85 or older, as reported by the American Health Care Association.  Significantly, 44% of this group needs support for personal care, such as bathing, toileting or getting dressed. A notable 45% of these future residents are living alone, while cognitive health looms as a significant concern, with 57% of searchers citing memory issues as a problem. For users searching for senior living, this data underscores the importance of identifying care needs and understanding care capabilities in the search process. 

Additionally, Seniorly has identified two types of independent searchers. The first group of individuals, managing the search for themselves, comprises almost 24% of site users. The second group, representing just over 75% of site users, are individuals managing the search on behalf of someone else, like a parent or partner.  Among this second group, over half are looking on behalf of a parent. For these Gen X adults, many are also balancing the search with the demands of daily life, like work and raising their own children. These users want - and need - a simpler, on-demand solution that is catered to their own search preferences. And as a demographic with markedly different digital habits than their parents, Gen X users are far more likely to seek digital media to meet their search needs.

Our data reveals that both groups of customers are seeking a richer toolkit to aid in their decision-making, with almost half wanting an easy method to compare senior living community details and just over 25% looking for checklists that will help them make more informed choices. To help them move through the journey,  a third of them also want to have a better picture of daily life in a senior living community.  “This is such an exciting challenge for a company like Seniorly” said Sushanth Ramakrishna, Chief Product Officer for Seniorly. “As a company that was built around the idea that technology could solve many of the pain points in the search for senior living, we have an incredible opportunity to find new ways to deliver on-the-spot solutions for people - where, when and how they want it."