Growing old isn’t always a fun experience, and sometimes it means that seniors are no longer able to keep pace with life. When home is no longer a safe space for seniors, other living arrangements must be made.
If you’re working on finding a proper senior living facility for your favorite senior, prep yourself to do some research. Start your research journey now, and take a quick read through these helpful tips for finding the right senior living facility.
Check out the pricing
The price of care varies widely from facility to facility. It’s important to understand what your loved one can afford to sustain before you get your hopes up about any particular place.
Moving to a senior living community could be long term, so you want to make sure there’s enough money to sustain the lifestyle first. Finding a spot that fits the available financial resources is key.
Assisted living versus nursing homes
There is a distinct difference between a nursing home and an assisted living facility. Understanding this difference is important when you’re looking for a proper living situation for your beloved senior.
Nursing homes are for individuals that need constant medical care and supervision throughout their day. Assisted living facilities give a little help with bathing and dressing, but they don’t typically have a nurse on staff for each resident every day.
Understand the level of care needed
You should also understand the levels of care in an assisted living facility. If your loved one is living with Alzheimer’s or some other manifestation of dementia, you’ll need to find an assisted living facility that works with dementia patients.
The level of care needed by your senior loved one will dictate the price level of the accommodations. Having a basic understanding of the setup will help you find more suitable prospects along the way.
Read reviews about prospects
Once you have found a few prospective places for your senior to live, take the time to really dig into the reviews you can find online. See what other people say about the place. If it’s terrible, you’ll see it in the reviews.
If a place doesn’t have very many reviews, put it at the bottom of the list. Ideally, you want to find a place that has mostly good reviews and a lot of them.
Set up a tour and walkthrough
Once you have a list of at least three solid prospects, you want to take the next step. Make contact with the facility, and talk to someone about setting up a walkthrough and interview. You need to get a feel for how the facility is run before you can make the best decision on placement.