I have been on the earth for over 50 years. My mother worked in a nursing home as an activity director and social services directory for over 20 of those. I visited my grandparents and great grandparents in nursing homes. I have had people tell me that it is the most horrid, mean, (feel free to load many more negative modifiers here) thing that a person could do to a loved one. But sometimes you just do not have a choice.

My mother’s health was such that she could no longer live in her house. And I was over three hours away. After much discussion (argument) she was going to move closer to me and live in a nursing home so I could go do dr visits, visit her, do her laundry etc. It was a huge step as she knew no one where I lived and had lived most of her life in the same small town she grew up. Living with me just was not an option, physically I just could not take care of her needs, not to mention working full time, being a wife and mom, and hopefully finding about 20 min just for me in each day (not counting shower/bathroom time).

But first I had to find a nursing home. Some things to consider in this hunt:

• Make it fairly close to where you live or in your flight path to work or somewhere you go normally. It makes it easier to visit, easier to pop in at odd hours, just easier.
• Most states have sites that list the nursing home “scores” as they are subject to inspections aka surveys. Just google the state and nursing home survey results. Reading through them, look at past years also. Anyone can have a bad day, you are looking to see if they have fixed the issues or are they just not a facility you want your person to be located. 
• Look at the staff to patient ratio. Compare it with other facilities.
• Consider the needs of your person. At that point, my mother was still mobile, so I looked at what outings did they have? Did they have any partnership with the local library? Was the only activity bingo? Did they let the residents come and go outside as they pleased? If she had been more bedridden, that is when staffing ratios become more of a focus.
• Go visit the locations. I didn’t make appointments mostly because I didn’t want them to prepare. Ask to speak to the admission director or the like. Ask to walk around with them. Get the vibe. Go with your gut.
• Talk about cost. How it is paid etc. If a person is on Medicaid, then there may be only so many Medicaid beds and they may need to go on a wait list.  Ask about availability and types of rooms.

I had a few questions, but I was so overwhelmed by the magnitude of what I was trying to make happen, it felt like I visited them in a daze. At one point, one of the directors said ” What else do you need to know?” and I responded to her “I don’t even know what I don’t know at this point”. Granted if it happened today, I would say, I am not sure, what else DO I need to know? 

But do go with questions and try to make it the same questions for each facility you talk to. (search: questions to ask nursing facilities; make your own list from your best 5-10 you see) I picked three of the best facilities (I thought) and presented these options to my mother. Granted she did not have internet and there were a lot of paper printouts. I told her about them, my questions and the answers and my visits. One of them had a therapy dog (which I thought was very cool). The moment I mentioned this she declared she would NOT live with a dog. And that eliminated that facility. This, my friend, is why you go to the trouble of more than one choice. 

This transition can be really hard on everyone. She packed up 11 boxes of things she had to have in her room. Her room was the size of my 1986 college dorm room, complete with matching cinder block walls. But I moved it all up here. She has been gone over 10 years and I still have boxes in my attic. A wise boss once told me, you cannot die on every hill and this was not one I was willing to die on.

We will probably have a later post about advocating… but for now, just know it is hard. You are not a horrid person for going down this route, sometimes it is just a necessity and a hard one at that. Kudos for you for being the stand up person who is trying to make the best of a not so great situation. You rock and you are not alone!