Assisted Living News

Most people don’t read about senior care for fun, but when you’re a caregiver or senior yourself, it’s natural to immerse yourself with information and inspiration that will make your life easier. Fortunately, there are an increasing number of quality resources that provide information and encouragement to seniors and the 65 million Americans who provide care for aging or disabled loved ones. If you’ve enjoyed our assisted living blog, here are 6 other high quality, frequently...

Q: My 89 year old elderly mother has Alzheimer’s disease and lives with me, my husband, and my two children. She has no short term memory at all, but she doesn’t need a lot of hands on care. We spent thousands of dollars converting our garage into a living space so that she could stay with us, but now we’re worried that she’s going to burn the house down. She won’t stop smoking inside and her memory is so bad that sometimes she has two or even three cigarettes lit at the...

Texas’ Medicaid low reimbursement rates may be negatively impacting needy seniors who rely on Medicaid to pay for their long term care. A news outlet in Houston recently reported that Medicaid reimbursement rates in Texas, the second lowest in that nation, have caused an assisted living community near Dallas to shutter its doors. Needy Seniors in Texas Negatively Impacted Medicaid is the national health insurance program for low-income Americans, and pays for the nursing home care and assisted ...

Activists and advocates for seniors in Florida are making their voices heard, and are on the verge of accomplishing a major legislative achievement to assure that seniors in assisted living facilities and adult care homes receive quality care. In a January blog posted we outlined campaigns by Florida legislators and elder advocates to update rules and regulations for assisted living communities and adult family care homes. The campaign to encourage lawmakers in Tallahassee increase oversight on assis...

Access to assisted living is important because it is a vital intermediate care type for seniors who don’t need skilled nursing but who may not be able to live independently. Last week we listed the states with the most assisted living options based on an AARP report titled Assisted Living and Residential Care in the States. Minnesota leads the way for assisted living access with 78 beds per 1000 seniors, which is well above the United States average of 31 assisted living units per 1000 seniors....

Assisted living communities have assumed an important role in America’s long term care system. They provide an intermediate option for seniors who can’t live at home safely, but who don’t need the heavy duty care offered at a nursing home. Assisted living is an essential component of the network of long-term care options for seniors. Communities are best served when there are a diverse options of assisted living providers in the area, and availability that’s sufficient to serv...

Q: Where can I learn about the different types of licensing and which facilities provide what kinds of care? We live in Dallas, Texas and would like to have my mother in a place that offers the higher level of care in assisted living, as opposed to skilled nursing, which she really does not need. All I can find on the internet are various commercial sites that don’t really help other the than to advertise for the facilities. Also, is there any way to find out which facilities are the “bes...

Caregiving is one profession that continued to grow through the recession. That’s because America is growing older by the day. Recession or no recession, an increasing number of people will be needed to care for our graying population. This is particularly true in areas with a high number of seniors. A new report by Caregiverlist.com ranks the top cities for caregiver employment, and you may be surprised to see the top city isn’t in Florida or Arizona. The city that tops the Caregiver Emp...

A major snowstorm is headed for the Northeast. It’s important for families and neighborhoods to keep an eye on the elderly during these times. Seniors are always at risk during severe weather, and that is what is on the way for most of the Northeast. The National Weather Service issues a stern warning to the public at 3pm Friday: …MAJOR WINTER STORM BEGINNING TO UNFOLD ACROSS THE NORTHEASTERN U.S. WITH BLIZZARD CONDITIONS FORECAST FOR TONIGHT INTO EARLY SATURDAY… BLIZZARD WARNINGS A...

Assisted living is one place where fire safety need to be taken extremely seriously because the residents are so vulnerable.  The very health issues that made assisted living necessary for the elderly residents could make it very difficult for them to escape in a fire. An example of how bad it can get is the Golden Age nursing home fire of 1962, which tragically killed 63 residents. But despite diligent prevention efforts, fires still do happen at senior care facilities. Last week KOMO News of Seattl...

Q: My 79 year-old mother and my 51 year-old sister live together in a small house out of state. My mother has numerous health problems, including early dementia and my sister is supposed to be caring for her. But my sister has a hard time taking care of herself, let alone our mother. She’s on disability because of bipolar disorder and suffers from health issues of her own. I visit ever year around Christmas, and each year the house is increasingly cluttered and messy. During my visit last month...

The 2012-2013 flu season has been been among the most brutal in recent memory. Across the United States flu activity has been intense, and according Google Flu Trends, it is only beginning to peak now,. Seniors are among the most vulnerable groups – about 90% of people who die from the flu are elderly. This season has been no exception – the Washington Post reported the hospitalization among seniors is at its highest since the 2003-2004 flu season. Not Too Late to Vaccinate The Center for...

A series of four articles in Miami’s newspaper the Herald, titled Neglected to Death and pubished in 2011, highlighted horrible instances of neglect at senior communities and also the failure of local authorities to detect and prevent these horrific problems. The series revealed the ghastly and unacceptable fact that “at least one ALF resident dies from starvation, beatings or neglect at little-regulated homes in Florida per month.” And the fourth part of the series described how th...

The strategies and tactics of scammers must constantly evolve because their ruses and tricks get old fast. The public learns about a scam, and suddenly it doesn’t work anymore. So the scammers are always switching things up and coming up with new ideas, or variations on old ones. Just two weeks into 2013, we’ve already seen several new alerts for senior scams. Here are three scams officials have been warning people about. While these scams have generally been local, they could spread to (...

It’s been more than two months since Super Storm Sandy made landfall near Atlantic City, New Jersey, but the wrath of this storm continues to be felt by seniors in the impact zone. Many Seniors Still Displaced In the days after the storm we blogged about how many senior communities sheltered elderly evacuees during the storm. Unfortunately, many of these seniors are still living in emergency housing. There have been reports recently about concerns involving several hundred evacuees who fled to ...