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Need help with aging parents

543DoublePlay — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 17:22:34 -0800

Aging parents question. My wife’s parents are in their 80’s and are both in poor health, and we don’t know where to start looking for help as far as care for them is concerned. All details inside. They live in Georgia in a small apartment in a nice complex while we are in Virginia. My father-in-law is basically bed ridden and mom-in-law is his sole care giver except for a social services home care help that comes in a couple of times a week . Except for their small pensions from his military service and mom-in-laws career as a nurse they have no other income other than their social security. Medicare and Medicaid cover the prescriptions that are needed, but they are still having problems making ends meet.

Mom’s health is now causing concern and we think that she won’t be able to care for pop much longer. I believe the only option is for my wife’s father to be in some kind of assisted living facility where he can be cared for professionally and mom does not have the added stress of caring for him basically 24/7.

What are our options as far as assisted living is concerned for people on a limited income in the Medicaid system? Private places are out of the question as they want too much money. Is there some kind of state run assisted living facility we can look into? What about hospices – how do they work and what level of terminal illness do they usually accept? I have no idea of how to deal with this or where to start looking for help. They will not under any circumstances leave where they are (south of Atlanta) and come up to us. My wife is planning to go down for a few days in the next week or two, so this is the time to be contacting people to find out more about this. But who to contact? Doctors? Social Services? Who? Thanks.

How do I help my father retire into an assisted living community?

occhiblu — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 12:03:34 -0800

How do I find and evaluate assisted living, retirement communities, and nursing homes from afar? My father wants my help in researching retirement options for him, and he wants to retire to an area where neither of us currently lives. Google is a bit overwhelming and feels predatory on this topic, and I'm just not sure how to proceed. He's young now -- looking to retire in about ten years -- but has several health problems. (At this point, the main concern is his balance and mobility; he's really not getting around very well.) He's had one stroke, and I'm concerned about how that might continue to affect him cognitively and emotionally.

He's been talking about an assisted living community, or a continuing care community, that will allow him to live independently for as long as he is able but give him access to doctors and PT and help when he needs it, and eventually a place that could move him into more intensive care if and when he needs it without his having to uproot his life entirely. He's in love with Savannah, GA, and is hoping to find a place there (warm weather, fishing opportunities, and lack of hurricanes or earthquakes are his current criteria).

How do I do this? I've been signing up for mailing lists, but I don't even know how to evaluate the info I'm looking at. How do I assess the medical care? The community? Is this going to be semi-pointless unless I can go visit? Do many of these "continuing care" communities even exist right now, or does it make sense to wait another few years and hope the idea spawns more options? Or is there some financial advantage to setting up this sort of arrangement as early as possible? Other thoughts?

Help me help my grandparents help my mother

cilantro — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 19:15:40 -0800

Six months ago, my 50-year-old mother had a serious stroke, and the nursing home that she's in now considers her recovered enough to move on to an assisted living or daily home health care situation. I'm trying to help my 75-year-old grandparents figure out what to do. My mother and I are permanently estranged, and I'm not in a situation to help financially, so I want to at least do what I can to help the grandparents who raised me to find a place for her. Right now, they think their only option is to take care of her at home, but I know and I think they know that it won't work. The drug and alcohol addiction that indirectly led to her stroke is still evident, she begs for additional pain medication (loritabs) and threw a tantrum when a nurse mentioned that the doctor was probably going to start cutting back on the dosage. She is still seriously impaired in her speech and motor skills and requires physical help that my grandparents won't be able to provide for any real length of time, in spite of the fact that they are very healthy and active. From what I've read, Medicaid doesn't cover home health care or assisted living in Tennessee or Kentucky (they live about ten miles on the TN side from the border of those states). Where on earth do we start looking for ways to find this kind of care in other states, preferably states that aren't too far away? Is it even possible to move someone into another state for the sole purpose of taking advantage of their health care services? I've poked around on Google and it's hard to find anything that clearly explains the issues surrounding this. Information, links to information, and general ideas or advice from anyone with any experience with these issues will be greatly appreciated.

alternatives to/improvements on nursing home care in the NY/NJ/CT area for an elderly person with disabilities

hilatron — Wed, 12 Jan 2005 08:22:20 -0800

I’m looking for alternatives to/improvements on nursing home care in the NY/NJ/CT area for an elderly person with disabilities. [+] I am my father’s legal guardian. He has mild multiple sclerosis, and uses a wheelchair to get around. He also has early-stage dementia: very poor short-term memory, poor judgment, mood swings, etc. He needs 24-hour supervision because he can’t manage his meds alone, needs help with personal care, and periodically tries to walk unaided or otherwise put himself in danger of a fall.

He is currently in a nursing home in NH, which provides for his physical needs but little else: he gets very little social contact except for visits from family, and this is the only mental stimulation that seems valuable to him (he can’t read well due to the memory problems; he doesn’t watch TV; he used to love listening to music but seems to have no initiative to do so now). I also fear that he is undergoing a process of learned helplessness. He seems content to let the staff of the nursing home do almost everything for him; and they fulfill this wish because it’s faster for the overworked nurses to do things like put on his pants for him than to help him do it himself. I’ve attempted to set things up so that he gets as much mental stimulation as possible, but it seems there’s only so much I can do within the framework of the institution. I’m afraid that his mental decline is going to be hastened by these factors, and he’s only 71.

Within the next year, I’m going to be moving from Massachusetts to NYC, and my father wants to move as well so he’ll be close to me and other family members. I’m hoping this will be a good opportunity to find a better living arrangement for him. The elderly services I’ve been able to investigate so far don’t seem to offer anything different from what he’s getting now: there seems to be a model for elderly care that runs from retirement communities to assisted living to nursing homes, with little variation in the services they provide.

I’m wondering if anyone has any experience with either a) facilities for the elderly/physically disabled that might be off the map and provide more personalized, creative care; or b) a way to create a care plan for him individually, either by adding services to what he receives from a nursing home, or with him living in a private apartment with aides. My main goal is to provide him with more meaningful day-to-day social contact, and to put him in a situation where the staff is committed to keeping him as independent as possible. Money is definitely an object – he’s on Medicaid right now. However, since Medicaid laws differ from state to state, I’m happy to do the research on financial viability if anyone has any leads at all – even nursing homes with good visiting volunteer programs would be better than what is available to him in NH. Thanks for reading this opus; any advice/discussion of these issues is welcome.