Retardation No Longer Bar to Comfortable Retirement : Aging: Better medical treatment and social services have kept them alive longer than people with similar problems years ago. Single-family homes offer benefits.

At 59, Carl Nelson is relishing his golden years. The days of washing dishes or building wooden pallets are long over.

Slippers cover his feet. “The Price is Right” is on the television. Two bowling trophies sit proudly on his night stand. And four pals are right down the hall.

“I’m home all the time. I watch TV and sleep a lot,” boasted Nelson, nestled into a flowered sofa as Bob Barker barks in the background.

Thirty years ago, he probably would have been dead or locked away in an institution by now.

Nelson and his four retired house mates are among a growing population of elderly people who are mentally retarded. Improved medical treatment and better social services programs have kept them alive longer than people with similar disabilities years ago.

After years of structured mainstreaming--such as washing dishes in a Salvation Army kitchen or building wooden pallets in a workshop--Nelson and others said, enough.

They told the agencies charged with their care that they noticed their own aging, were worried it would affect their everyday lives and expressed frustration over not being able to keep up with younger workers.

The agencies responded by placing elderly people with developmental disabilities in single-family homes.

It’s a trend across the country, experts said.

“Clients have been saying as they get older, ‘I’m tired of doing this. I am ready to kick back and relax,’ ” said Joni Fritz, executive director of the Annandale, Va.-based American Network of Community Options and Resources. Her group represents 550 private providers of services for people with developmental disabilities.

“That’s really how these programs have grown,” Fritz said. “People with mental retardation are expressing themselves, and providers are listening.”

The mainstreaming remains, but the structured days are over. Nelson and friends now do whatever they want.

There’s tiny Murray Shieff, 68, who eats spinach with dinner every night. There’s 56-year-old John Rieggle, who hangs out during the day at a nursing home up the street. And there’s Anthony and Herbert Schatzel, ages 67 and 71, two brothers who favor a senior citizens center and plan an occasional game of bingo.

“It all has to do with choice, giving these folks a choice,” said Patti Marino, spokeswoman for the Assn. for Retarded Citizens of Allegheny County, a Pittsburgh-based provider that just purchased its second home exclusively for elderly clients.

Nelson lives in the agency’s first home, which opened in November, 1992, in McCandless Township, about 8 miles north of the city. The home offers four televisions, a two-car garage, a game room and a back-yard rock garden.

ARC-Allegheny counselors staff the home but care for the people only as needed.

“If they can still do their laundry, they do it,” said Chris Schopf, who developed the elderly accommodations program for ARC-Allegheny. “As much as they can do, they do for themselves.”

Nelson used to work five days a week and lived in an ARC-sponsored apartment. He was presented with the retirement option after complaining about his noisy building and hectic pace.

For years, people with developmental disabilities were institutionalized, which experts say limited their personal advancement and the medical care they received. But in the late 1960s and early ‘70s, the concept of working them into society--mainstreaming--became the norm, resulting in today’s elderly population.

“Twenty to 30 years ago, it was common for a physician to recommend institutionalization,” said Dr. William Cohen, a developmental pediatrician at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.

“The closing of institutions and the fact that people were being raised at home showed they have value, they have rights, they can learn, and people began paying much more attention to their health needs,” Cohen said.

Doctors also learned what problems to expect. In cases of Down’s syndrome, for instance, heart problems that can lead to early death can be remedied by surgery six months after birth.

In 1955, less than 50% of infants born with Down’s syndrome survived the first year and only 40% were still alive by age 5. In contrast, by 1989 more than 80% of children with Down’s syndrome were still alive by age 5, according to a study conducted by Canadian researchers Adele D. Sadovnick and Patricia A. Baird.

The precise size of the population of elderly people with mental retardation is not known because statistics have not been kept. But Matthew Janicki, who directs aging services for New York’s mental retardation and developmental disabilities office, estimated that for every 1,000 people 60 and older, four of them are developmentally disabled.

The number could double by the turn of the century, Janicki said.

Since clients are living longer, the agencies look for homes that are environmentally friendly to the elderly. For example, ranch-style homes on flat property are preferred to homes with steep landscaping or many steps.

Once a house is chosen, agencies often face the same problem ARC-Allegheny has encountered in Hampton Township with its second home--reluctant neighbors who argue that a group home will lead to lower property values and increased traffic.

But opponents have enjoyed little success in court when confronted with a federal housing law prohibiting discrimination against the disabled.

The home where Carl Nelson lives previously was owned by a man whose wife used a wheelchair. When purchased, it had ramps and an oversize shower. The laundry room is on the same floor as the bedrooms, living room and kitchen.

A hospital and shopping mall are within a five-minute drive.

From the outside, there is nothing that sets the house apart from any of the other homes in the middle-class neighborhood.

“None of us would object to living there,” said Dennis Ceccarelli, ARC-Allegheny’s facilities manager.

Nelson agrees.

“I love it,” he said.