What I look for in an Assisted Living Facility...

After a fantastic and relaxing weekend in Philly, I came back and continued my quest to find my Grandma an Assisted Living Facility. I took another tour a couple of days ago and thought maybe I should right about what I have been looking for. 

Ultimately my Grandma is going to be making the decision, but due to her inability to travel and visit a bunch of different facilities, I thought I would go around and make the first pass. In a previous post, I mentioned that it seems similar to finding a college apartment. Now, for a couple of the facilities, I feel like it depends on the facility. There are a couple of facilities in particular that did not listen to me on the phone during my initial conversation with them and they scheduled me on a tour with the wrong department. That facility and another has called me or emailed me multiple times per week over the last couple of weeks. Come on... no matter the reason, that just makes you look desperate and they were immediately chopped from my list.

Currently I have two facilities that I like and it turns out the directors of these two facilities are best friends. The are both reasonable in price with a ton of activities throughout the day. When I visited and took a tour, the facility was nicely decorated and clean. They smelled fresh and the residents were active and social. I have seen facilities where almost every resident were in wheelchairs and they all had a vacant look in their eye. There were other facilities that just looked scary. 

So as a summary, the things I look for are the cleanliness, atmosphere, and activities of a facility. I look to see how active and about the residents are. Is the facility nice and clean? Are the aides and concierges nice and friendly? What is the overall feel of the place? After my tour, do they follow up with me or are they absolutely obnoxious?

I'm sad and missing my dad, so I'm having a hard time coming up with a Pop-ism today. I've actually been having a hard time sitting down and writing this post for a few days. When depressed, sometimes the simplest task is ridiculously hard to complete. So my Pop-ism... He is incredibly smart and knew some much about so many things. He was always teaching and seemed to know everything. He could build anything too. I wish that I had half of the knowledge that he does. I wish I had even a small amount of his ability to build things from scratch. He was and is an amazing person.

Did you know...

The Alzheimer's Association (www.alz.org) is a great resource and all of the following statistics come from their website:

• Of Americans aged 65 and over, 1 in 9 has Alzheimer's, and 1 in 3 people aged 85 and older has the disease.
• Another American develops Alzheimer's disease every 68 seconds. In 2050, an American will develop the disease every 33 seconds.
• Alzheimer's is the only cause of death among the top 10 in America without a way to prevent it, cure it, or even slow its progression.

There are many more statistics but these are the ones that are the scariest to me. In my mind, it is because there was a boom in the population with the baby boomers, so as that generation ages a larger number of people are going to have Alzheimer's or dementia. This also means that there are going to be a greater number of caretakers as well as more money spent on care. 

There are already drastic changes to Medicare protocol that makes it increasingly difficult to have care covered. We ran into it with my dad. He was too healthy to have Medicare cover the cost of his care even though it was blatantly obvious that he needed more advanced care than my family could provide him. He had an amazing doctor at Beaches Baptist hospital who tried every test he could think of to find something wrong with my dad but to no avail. It causes this feeling of helplessness amongst caregivers and doctors. 

That leads me to another thing that annoys me about this disease. The horrible feelings that the caregivers end up feeling which are totally justified but yet feel guilty for feeling just the same. Is it wrong to feel relief once your loved one has been placed with in a home? No... but yet we still feel guilty for feeling relieved. And there are many more situations that cause the same type of feelings. It sucks and I wish there was a way to easily reprogram our minds and how we feel about a particular situation. 

So on another note, I tried again, unsuccessfully, to persuade my Grandma last  into making the decision to move to St. Pete. Instead, I ended up tasked with finding doctors for her down here. I don't mind, if it makes her more comfortable in making the decision to have all that defined and mapped out, then I'll gladly do it. 

I thank everyone for all of the positive feedback that I've been getting! I'm trying to keep it upbeat for the most part even though it's such a depressing subject so I decided to pick a funny Pop-ism today. My dad is color blind. He can see bright colors but all pastels look the same to him. He can see the nuances between shades of the same color but all the different colors in a similar shade look the same to him. So... hehehehe.... I used this to my advantage when I was in college. I had nail polish that was light blue... and while my dad was taking a nap one day... I painted his toenails pale blue... hehehe... he had no clue. Even looking down at his own feet... no idea... it was awesome! He didn't know until one day one of my brothers came over to talk to him on how to fix something and looked down at my dad's feet. My brother asked him why his toenails blue and my dad had no idea... I was outside and heard this exchange... it was awesome! My dad has a great sense of humor and was always one that enjoyed a great practical joke.

Finding Assisted Living

I wish that there was a big sign over an assisted living facility letting you know the grade of that facility. Or if there was a way to be a fly on the wall of the facility to see how residents are treated when the families aren't around. As I've said we've placed my dad at one that seems very nice and I've started the process of finding a facility for my Grandma in St. Petersburg. 

Most facilities do not provide you what the cost is per month unless you make the effort and tour the facility. So far, in St. Petersburg, I have visited (or tried to visit) 3 facilities and I'm in the process of scheduling visits with more. When we were looking for facilities for my dad our main focus was the Memory Care unit and the types of care they were able to provide. Most facilities offer different levels of care and some can be certified or rated to have the ability to dispense a larger dosage of certain types of drugs if the need ever arises.

In my research I have found there are considerable more facilities in St. Petersburg than there are in Jacksonville. In Jacksonville there are only a handful of facilities in a 10 mile radius around my parents house. In St. Petersburg there are over 50 facilities within a 10 mile radius. And as I visit these facilities I'm reminded of when I was trying to find an apartment when I was in Gainesville for college. "If you sign this weekend we can give you 1/2 off of your first 6 months!!" It seems a little odd to me that assisted living facilities are doing this. In Jax, there are waiting lists... not in St. Pete. I could move my Grandma into the one that I like today if I wanted. And in St. Pete a comparable facility to the one my dad is in is half the price of what we are paying for my dad. It's crazy!! Down here is definitely a buyer's market. 

Now how do I make a decision and how do I get Grandma to finally decide that she wants to move. I get the impression that part of her wants to move and be waited on but part of her is scared about the change. There is also so much to consider... Doctors, how to pay for it, amenities, nearby hospitals, etc... 

If you haven't already signed up for long term care insurance, consider it now. From what I've heard the younger you are when you sign up for it the cheaper it is and it would cover the costs of things that we are currently having to worry about for my dad and soon, my grandma. Did you know that assisted living facilities (the nicer ones) cost $3,500-10,000 per month!!! That was an eye opener, I had no clue. The costs are not covered by health insurance or Medicare at all for most situations. There is an Aid and Assistance program for vets or surviving spouses of vets that helps out with the cost of care, but it's not much. 

So I've got a facility that I really like and is around the corner from me that I would LOVE to move my Grandma into, now it's just getting her use to the idea. I'm visiting a few more while she is trying to decide, just in case I can find one that is just as nice and slightly cheaper. It's just convincing my 87 year old grandma that change is a good thing. 

So this weekend I'm taking a break. I'm going to Philly, I'm going to run/walk my half marathon, I'm going to have fun, and I'm going to relax. On Monday I'll be touring the next facility and continuing trying to talk my Grandma into moving here.

Since I'm really missing my dad right now and I really wish I could pick up the phone and call him and talk about my upcoming trip and race I thought I would give a Pop-ism about that. He was big into physical fitness and was always encouraging me in any of my athletic pursuits. When I was in high school as long as I was involved in a sport, I didn't have to find a part time job so of course I was on the swim team. As I got into triathlons and running, he was there at every finish line until I moved to St. Pete. I really missed him at the finish line of my first half-ironman but I was on the phone with he and mom immediately after. For some phone calls, even if he couldn't remember my name he could remember I was always running and training and would ask about it. Today I miss that. A lot.