How do I find long-term care for a chronically ill parent?
If you're looking for the ideal care setting for a loved one that is chronically ill or, let's say somebody that is suffering from dementia, including Alzheimer's, I would say that the main thing you want to keep in mind is you don't want to put the person in a care setting that is too high level for them. In other words, if you have somebody who is in the early stages of dementia, you don't want to put them in a place where most of the people are really advanced or end stage dementia patients. At the same time you don't want to put somebody in a setting where they're not going to get enough supervision. One thing is to go out and see the actual places that are available, observe the people that are residing there, talk to them and talk to the staff, and probably also talking to people in the communities, social service agencies, social workers, geriatric care managers and geriatricians or other physicians in the area who may be good resources to determine what the proper level of care is. If you have somebody who is still ambulatory and they have a tendency to wander, you probably want a locked unit or a unit where they can wear a bracelet or anklet like a wander guard that will alert somebody if they are trying to leave the premises.
