Do you need help with daily activities such as cooking, gardening, or getting into the shower without an around-the-clock nurse? It would be best if you considered assisted living facilities. Such facilities provide staff that reminds you about your meds, buckle up your shoes, bolt your door, and run other miscellaneous errands. Based on a home-like idea, assisted living facilities are structures where maximum care and comfort are offered while still maintaining homeliness.
Like colleges, assisted living facilities to support similar goals and serve a specific population despite being of different sizes, costs, perks, culture, and specialties. For this reason, there are preferences to consider when searching for the best assisted living facility.
- Size
There is a significant gap in the industry which means people in search of an adult foster care facility probably have fewer options. However, different people react to sizes in different ways – a facility with thirty licensed beds may be enough for a client while that with 500 might be a bad fit. More so, the staff-to-resident ratio is usually low as one staff may be assigned to four or more residents. Which means more than size, this ratio is considered in addition to staff demeanor – do the staffs enjoy working for and with the elderly, or are they doing it for the paycheck?
Perhaps size may matter more when talking about types of services rendered. Swimming pools, movie4me theatres, and specialized memory care, for instance, are amenities that could be found in large facilities.
- Location
Indeed, being close to loved ones or remaining in the locale is the objective. Nonetheless, the location of an assisted living facility will determine their mode of operation based on regulations. For instance, you may not get adequate medical assistance from specific facilities simply because the state regulates the level of medical aid offered. Since these facilities are more in tune with socialization than the former, those limitations may only be a stepping stone to benefitting some more from the program, if you can’t go through the rigors of moving to another state.
- Services
A broad spectrum of health needs forces facilities to tailor services into categories such as housekeeping, wellness, dining services, or medication management support. For instance, a facility will likely render more medication support in a state where dementia or Alzheimer’s disease is rampant. The same applies to exercise and wellness programs for diabetic patients or people who want to shed some weight. Regardless, always enquire about the general programs available as there aren’t two assisted living facilities that offer the same services.
- Cost
Cost is a strong determinant of whether or not you’ll live in an assisted living facility. Because many residents pay through savings, benefits, personal finances, home equity life insurance, and a combination of other resources, these facilities are generally considered as a luxury. Except you qualify for Medicaid or have family members who are responsible for you, do not opt for assisted living facilities unless of course, you can readily afford them.
It is highly commendable to run an internet search on worthy options before paying a facility. Like you wouldn’t buy a house without checking it out, visit the facility and certify that it feels like a homely environment.
