The call came around midnight on a cold night in January 2006.  I was only half awake when I answered the phone, having been startled out of a deep sleep.  "Your mother just died..." said the voice at the other end of the phone.  It was the night nurse at the facility where my mother had been living for the previous several years.  "We helped her to the bathroom, got her settled back in bed...and then she just stopped breathing..."   The news came as a quite a shock to me, but...to be honest...as a bit of a relief, as well.  

Close your eyes and imagine this: You are an adult of average height (whatever that means these days) with no physical disabilities.  You walk into your home to find that your light switches have been moved out of reach.  Your kitchen cabinets, microwave, pantry and all of your closet rods and shelves have been set so high on the wall you can barely access the items you store in them without asking for assistance.  The door knobs are difficult to grasp and turn.  The mechanisms to open your windows are even worse than the door knobs.  Your windows are set so high you hardly see out over the sill.  Your faucets are placed so far back from the front of the countertop that you struggle to lean over to turn them on.  You find most things in a position that make them either difficult to access or just plain awkward and uncomfortable to navigate. 

Does this sound like a home you would want to live in?