What are our choices: dementia care assisted living, TBI unit or nursing home?
My father had emergency surgery following a subdural hematoma caused by a fall while taking a blood thinner. Several weeks after the initial brain surgery he once had a bleed and underwent a second surgery. Prior to the surgeries he was starting to show signs of dementia. After the surgery and over the past three years his mental health has been on a rapid decline.
He does not communicate and needs assistance with much of his daily life. We are now searching for a facility that would best suite his needs. Do we search for a dementia care facility, TBI unit or nursing home?
This is a difficult decision and we want to be sure that we are giving him the best quality of life possible.
I would tour them all (in the area you are thinking of). Look at the units. See if there is "memory care." Depending on his issues (it sounds like vascular, not Alzheimer's, but that could be wrong), he may or may not need a locked unit. The locked unit is to keep residents from wandering and getting lost or hurt.
My personal favorite, when it comes to "grading" a facility of any kind, is staff. Beautiful rooms, etc. are all very nice. But it's the staff that counts. Watch how the upper level staff - nurses, etc. - treat the hands-on CNAs. If they are disrespectful to the hands-on people, there is likely a lot of staff turnover, and that is hard on the elder. Observe the residents. Do they all seems docile and drugged or is an effort made (within reason) to engage them? Do they have choices of when to eat and what type of meals (again, within reason).
Visiting homes at different times of day, observing staff and how they treat one another, and observing other residents is actually more important than a guided tour. I would try to speak to the administrator, too, to see is he or she seems approachable. But do look around. The kind of place isn't as important as how he will be cared for when he gets there.
Take care and good luck,
Carol
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Hi, Max,
I agree totally with Carol's feedback. A couple of other pieces I'd suggest:
- Contact your state's health and human services agency to see if they have any complaints about the facilities that you are considering.
- See if you can talk to families of current residents. They can help you learn about the facility's strengths and weaknesses from that perspective (plus, if you decide to place your father there, you have a group of people who can help "coach" you through the initial phase of developing a relationship with the facility's staff).
Take care and keep us posted!
Dorian
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