What to Do If Your Elderly Parent Finds It Difficult to Cope With Life

If you have an elderly parent who is finding it difficult to cope with life you may be thinking about having them move to a nursing home or to an assisted living facility. One of the things that you need to consider is whether or not they require the skilled care that is available at nursing homes.

If they can live in a semi-independent environment and need assistance periodically rather than on a continuous basis throughout the day then an assisted living facility may be a better alternative.

Although assisted living facilities don't provide skilled care many of them now offer special Alzheimer's units. This part of the facility provides many of the daily needs of cognitively impaired patients.

One of the best things that you could do is to talk with your doctor and your parent's doctor in order to get their input about what type of facility they feel would be most suited for your loved one.

Practically speaking, all long-term care facilities must evaluate any potential incoming patients in order to determine if the facility and its staff can meet the future resident's needs. Unfortunately, these evaluations aren't always reliable. Indeed, a number of facilities readily accept patients even when they know that they do not have the ability to fully meet their needs.

In order to have a choice of residences you may want to contact the employees at your local Department of Aging or a social worker at a nearby hospital. Either of them could give you a list of the assisted living facilities as well as the nursing homes in your area.

In a lot of states the Social Services office is responsible for regulating the assisted living facilities that are located within their jurisdiction. These offices could also provide a list of facilities.

Try chatting with the people who give you the lists. Although they cannot recommend one facility over another they often have personal knowledge and, in the course of conversation, they may share some of their insights and thus may prove to be invaluable resources.

In addition to speaking with these professionals, you should search the Internet as well as the Yellow Pages in order to find any additional facilities. Doing so will help you compile a comprehensive list of all of the facilities that are located in your geographic area.

Once you've created a list, you can begin to do a more in depth study of each of the potential facilities. Why is that important? It's important because nursing home abuse is a growing problem in the United States.

----------------------------------------------------
If a loved one has been abused by a nursing home you can find an experienced Nursing Home Abuse Attorney at http://www.sokolovelaw.com/legal-help/nursing-home-abuse/

Wendy Moyer on behalf of Sokolove Law.

EasyPublish this article: http://submityourarticle.com/articles/easypublish.php?art_id=199137