Moving to a continuing care retirement community: occupations in the therapeutic landscape process

The process of transitioning into, and living in, a retirement community can be usefully examined with the concept of 'therapeutic landscapes.' While underutilized in anthropology and gerontology, the concept offers a combination of geographical and cultural views on the place and well-being relationship. The inclusion of an occupational science perspective, wherein occupations (or everyday activities of meaning) are seen as a crucial part of the person-place relationship, should enhance the therapeutic landscape perspective of older persons and their retirement communities. We present a case study analysis that attempts to combine these perspectives and examine the role of occupation in the lives of older people who moved to a Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC). 116 movers completed pre- and post-move questionnaires about their levels of engagement in 20 activities. Frequency distributions, paired t-tests, and logistic regression analyses performed on the data indicate that while overall levels of activity did not change from pre- to post-move, patterns of engagement did change in the course of the move to the CCRC. Some social and cultural activities (e.g., parties, concerts, movies, meetings) increased in frequency, and some maintenance chores (e.g., grocery shopping, housekeeping) and communication (email) decreased in frequency. Moreover, total activity engagement after the move was associated with residential satisfaction in the CCRC. Even with their limitations, the data and analytical findings suggest that occupations are an important part of the CCRC therapeutic landscape process.