Caregiving options

There seem to be many options for caregiving. As some people prefer, it is always better to have personal home care (living with the family). If the family cannot be there 24 hours, then outside help in the day will assist the family a lot. This is so far the preference that most people want. But at times, the family is far away and cannot be nearby.

So at this point, expensive 24 hours home care would be used.

e.g., in our case for my father-in-law: it was 1 hours per day at the beginning (2005-2006) and it gradually added up to 4 hours to 12 hours per day in 2006-2007. As my father-in-law gets sicker with moderate/severe Alzheimers, it is 24 hours now since last Nov.!! Now it is a point that 24 hours home care is more expensive than a nursing home!!

Then there is hospice, which is probably not preferred as the name itself is scary. It would be the very last option for a very sick elderly.

I have seen many posts here that argued which option is better. Some say staying  at home is the best. Some needed nursing homes as the last resort. It depends on each family's ability to carry this burden. If it is small family, the burden is greater. Some condemn the nursing homes.

Can we really judge other people for their options? I think unless it is obviously ignorant or callous, we need to respect the family's choice of the options. Our home care nurse keeps telling us he would not like a nursing home. But what do we do? We cannot waste his money like this. He is not the type to spend this kind of money.

She would tell me the nursing home has bad food, which is biased because she eats organic food only. Is this up to her? no, she has biased interest as she wants this job.

Of course, it is always not good to move my father-in-law because he is very confused. But the old house has lots of problems. So we are at the point that we need to consider a better place to go in a year. We may take one of the full-time caregivers with him in the day so he is not too confused suddenly.

My parents would not go to a nursing home. But they have 5 children and 4 of them live nearby. They are lucky that we can all help out. I am kind of stuck taking care of my father-in-law financially and etc so I see less of my parents now. I will see my parents this December myself.

Each family is different and they all have different options and no one can judge the family for their choice. I would be happy if people can support us and advise us with that consideration.

Also, some people condemn nursing homes. I think it is about time we think of something about improving a nursing home if we don't like the way it is now. It is a community support. Not everyone can stay at home without a nursing home. The right thing to do is to improve the nursing homes instead of blaming the homes.

Same thing for the hospice and hospital and etc. We all need this kind of community support, so let's say how to improve nursing homes instead of shutting them out.