Questions for Assisted Living

kwatson81

Our father was recently diagnosed with LBD. Right now, he is living independently with home healthcare and family support. The family would like to start looking for possible assisted living facilities. What are some important questions we should be asking when touring these places? We've found checklists online, but I have appreciated the advice from this forum. Thanks!

Emily 123

Your state may have a website where you can get to the overview and inspections of the different facilities. Here's Virginia's: https://www.dss.virginia.gov/facility/search/alf.cgi

You'll see that they have 'special' (memory) care, vs non-ambulatory care, vs. assisted living.

Each state determines how to categorize the levels of care and license the care facilities. Within that, the facility may elect to not provide the full range of services, especially now with staffing being such an issue. (Some larger facilities can offer rehab and even skilled nursing on site.)

For example, my mother's facility deems a two person assisted lift ok for both their MC and AL residents, but if your loved one needed a hoyer lift, they're not licensed to provide that level of care. Same with feeding-what's the cutoff? Will they provide and feed pureed foods? Do they consider feeding a person a nursing level of care? My mom's facility will do hand-over-hand assisted feeding, but we would need someone to feed Mom if she gets past that point

Ask what behaviors would get him kicked out. If that happens, what can they do to assist you in finding a new place?

Think about your dad's overall health. Is he likely to need lots of hospital care/rehab/skilled nursing, or is he fairly healthy? Do they offer onsight healthcare? Dental? Podiatry?

How do they manage to integrate new residents? If there's a mixed dementia and non-dementia population do they share the same spaces?

I made a spreadsheet to compare costs, levels of care, room footage, how they covered meds, etc. It helped me keep things straight.

All the places I liked were about 20 minutes away because of traffic--not horrible, but sometimes I wish it were closer.

Anonymousjpl123

Much of it will depend on your fathers special needs and preferences. I would think long term - based on his needs, will they have the types of hospital/nursing/medical care he requires? If it is an Independent Living/Assisted Living/Memory Carr facility, are the levels of care specified?

Finally, some of it is just “fit.” In my moms case, I knew a wide range of cultural and intellectual activities and a community that valued that was far more important to her than beautiful grounds, which she does not have. I could not find both and had to weigh pros and cons of both things.

When you meet the staff, watch how they interact with each other and the residents and how the residents interact with each other. This does matter, as you will want it to be someplace that becomes comfortable to you and your dad.

its great you are starting to look now.