It can be a very humbling experience to realize that one can no longer provide support for aging family members. Parents and grandparents, especially those with challenging medical conditions, may require more support than their families can provide.
Adult children worried about their parents because of the progression of their Alzheimer’s disease or a recent fall may reach the conclusion that they need to look into nursing home facilities. The greater Frankenmuth region has multiple different nursing homes that can offer residential support for older adults with care needs that their families cannot meet.
What should people look for when reviewing different facilities to provide care for a vulnerable loved one?
Overall cleanliness
The state of the physical facilities at a nursing home can provide insight into the likely standard of care there. Many nursing homes struggle to keep adequate staff on hand and therefore cannot consistently maintain clean facilities. In fact, they may struggle to simply meet the daily care needs of residents. Looking around both communal spaces and resident rooms can provide important information about the staff support and standard of living people would experience if they lived there.
Resident appearances
Older adults often rely on professional caregivers for everything from showering to getting dressed. Looking at how clean the residents are and whether they seem happy can provide insight into their quality of life at that facility. Stained clothing, unkempt hair and other warning signs of inadequate staff attention could all be red flags about the standard of support at a facility.
Staff member attitudes
Actually taking a moment to talk with the workers at a facility can also provide insight. Chronic understaffing can lead to bitterness and burnout, and workers may not hide how they feel about the company when talking to families. What workers disclose to families may give them a much better idea about what life is really like at the facility when compared with what marketing materials assert.
Finally, it may be necessary to look at the news to see if there have been any incidents reported at the nursing home or lawsuits initiated against the business.
Taking the time to carefully evaluate different nursing homes may help people feel more confident that their loved ones can receive appropriate support when they move into a residential facility.