Elderly Care: Nursing Homes

Choosing to move ones elder parent or loved one into a nursing home can be a difficult decision. However, if the health of your cherished parent has declined to the point that home care is not sufficient or that their health is too complicated to be admitted into assisted living, then a nursing home may be your best option.

Nursing Home Basics

Nursing homes are living facilities that specialize in providing long-term care on a consistent basis. Their residents are comprised of the chronically ill, frail, disabled, or convalescent inpatients. Historically, nursing homes have gotten a bad image, but there are plenty of well-kept homes with delicious meals that truly tend to the needs of their residents.

If you need to choose a nursing home for your former caregiver, there are some tips to help make the best decision possible. First and foremost, location is key. Find a home that is a short distance away so if anything should happen that requires your attention, you can get there quickly and easily.

Inspecting Nursing Homes

An on site inspection of the living facilities can reveal quite a bit. Walk around freely and chat with as many of the staff and patients as you can. No matter how pretty the photos look in the pamphlet, if you do not see any smiles around the place, the care given may not be up to par. Additionally, while you are there, make a visual inspection of the facilities. Look and make sure there are sprinkler systems installed and fire extinguishers in easy access places in case an emergency should happen. Finding out how close the local fire station is could also help put your mind at ease.

Enter the name of the facility into your favorite search engine and see if any news stories or blog entries come up about them. If people have had an unfavorable experience with a nursing home, they may vent their opinions on the web to help others from making the same mistakes they did.

Although reforms to help improve the quality of the nursing home system were put into effect in 1987, the system is severely bogged down and the number of homes with “deficiency” records has increased over the past few years. If you can, try to find a non-profit nursing home as they will not be at the mercy of corporate shareholders and may provide a better level of service.

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