Do you have anything good to say about nursing homes?

The fill a need of us not wanting to care for debilitiated people. Otherwise we’d have to, you know, step up.
But I’m being harsh. it could be that my mother, if debilitated, would rather a nurse wipe her ass than me. If she’s going to use insurance to pay for it, the horror stories is pretty much what you get.

No. My grandmother had $300 taken off of her pension a month to have someone spend time with her.

My mother in law has been in skilled nursing after hospitalization at her retirement home several times. She always does much better there. They take very good care of her and the food is ridiculously good.
It is extremely expensive however and out of reach for most people.

My wife has spent a lot of time in two different nursing homes, from injuries, and age. I could not fault these homes for any of the treatment and the way personnel handled the patients. Not all nursing homes are equal, but the ones I have knowledge of their operation, I would have no qualms about going to them myself [ I am 87 so…..] or recommend others. You do need to check out the homes before you go.

I work in a hospital that has a skilled nursing facility. It is very well run, clean, organized, and staff is helpful and caring.

I think that every one of our patients would rather be at home, but circumstances preclude that. There are patients who require 24 hour care that can not be supplied at home, We have some trauma patients with severe injuries who also require this kind of setting (not all of our patients are over 70). There are patients who are simply too frail or not ambulatory to be anywhere else.

SRM

There’s a nursing home near me that was a pilot for the Eden Project. They have dogs, birds, cats, and kids there all the time. They garden in the Summer. The residents do very well and they have a waiting list. I also happened to stop at a place where they also had a construction business, asking about some of the construction business. The owner thought I was asking about the nursing home and took me there. 40 or 50 seriously drugged out residents attended by two teenage girls. They were so comatose a fire wouldn’t have been noticed. I got out of there fast.

My brother spent the last year of his life in nursing homes and his experience was very good. It was paid for by the state of Texas along with medicare and medicaid. He was transferred once because he didn’t like the rules, but he loved the last place he stayed.

My Mom used to work in a couple of them. They were upper level facilities. I heard horror stories about both where she worked, and other places.
My sister in law was in a board and care, and that didn’t fare any better.

My dad stayed in a great place to recuperate after two major surgeries and my mom’s death. He had excellent skilled nursing care that included physical and occupational therapy, a nice man as a roommate, decent food, activities if and it was right in town so people could come to see him. I was only able to go up there on weekends (4 hour drive) and was so glad that he could be somewhere that he would have visitors. It’s the only nursing home I have been in that didn’t smell like urine.

On the flip side, my ex-FIL stayed in a place that smelled awful and the residents didn’t have anything to do. The food was okay, but all in all, I wish he had been somewhere nicer.

It’s good to hear some good stories.

My husband’s grandfather dealt with poor treatment many years ago and my mother has not had the best experience the past several months. My mom’s dentures were lost in the first home she stayed at and the nursing home will not reimburse her. This home also had a thief among its residents. (could be what happened to her dentures.) My mom is now in one of the better facilities in the area and I can’t believe what happened. She’s on a feeding tube and her feedings are supposed to be 12 hours on and 12 hours off. They let one of her feedings go an extra 3 hours and she had terrible stomach pains when this happened. My dad is paying $8000 a month for this!

OMG, 8,000 a month!? That is way too much money and then they forget to feed your mom?
I understand they get busy, but 15 minutes top.
I am so sorry this is happening to your family. For that kind of money, could your dad hire someone to come to their home to help with her?

@chyna $8000 per month isn’t out of the range. I’ve seen higher, depending on the care required.

@Adirondackwannabe Susie Orman mom’s bill was $30,000 a month I believe.

@Adirondackwannabe I work at an eden facility and it is much as you describe. We have daily weekly and yearly activities too. The entire staff is encouraged to interact and bond with residents. The food could usually use some work though on occasion we get donations of moose meat or salmon etc.
Not claiming perfection. We do have accidents and sometimes staff aren’t a good fit. We do have difficult residents and sometimes they have outbursts with other residents. Some times there is little we can do to improve quality of life. But it is something we do aim for and are constantly strategizing for.

We have very happy residents on down to unhappy ones the families also can be very grateful and happy or they are adversarial.

The eden philosophy is a good one. But challenging and difficult for staff the more we interact the more we care the harder it is to let go.

@Unbroken I’ve seen hell and I’ve seen the Eden facilities. Guess were I would want to go?
Good for you lady.

I’m amazed that people can afford some of these places. $8000 a month is like me paying 10 mortgage payments all at once. Must be nice to have that kind of money.

When I was in nursing school back in 2009, I had a clinical rotation in a nursing home. It was depressing and I hated being there, but I was under the impression that the staff was competent. Everything was always clean, they had some decent activities, and it seemed to run smoothly. Well, I ended up with a quadriplegic patient that could not speak or move and had horrible contractures in her limbs. I only had her for a day. Well, a couple of weeks later, I was called in to help a fellow nursing student that was assigned the same patient in removing and replacing a catheter. Once we got her in position, we saw that the nurses had been doing a horrible job cleaning this woman’s genitals. It was beet red and…let’s just say the area was quite obviously dirty. I felt so awful – I can only imagine how itchy and uncomfortable that had to have been and she didn’t have the ability to communicate with anyone about it. As a woman with a history of gynecological issues, I have an idea of what she was feeling.

After that, I realized these places aren’t always what they seem.

ETA: I just googled this patient’s name and saw that she died last year. So sad. She was my very first patient.

I have seen good and not so good nursing homes. You know how negative I can be about medical professionals, so it does not surprise me at all they make medical mistakes while caring for the patients. It happens in hospitals, doctor’s offices, and of course nursing homes. But, the majority of my experience with my relatives who have spent time in nursing homes medical care was pretty good. When my aunt was admitted the nurse practitioner did call when she thought a dosage was wrong, which I really appreciate, it was correct, but it is true the dosage is very high and easily could have caused an overdose in a different patient.

I think all too often if you are not an easy very compliant patient some staff members will get you back or ignore you, so that is a disgusting problem to me.

@livelaughlove21 My worst nightmare and why I might move to Oregon when I get older so can kill myself if I am becoming helpless. Truly scares me to death with my history.

@chyna My dad is taking her home this week. She can walk fine with a walker and help clean herself and do some things on her own now, she just can’t be left alone for too long. Family is going to help when my dad needs to leave the house and there’s other help available that he can afford. Mom will be happier at home, even though it may be harder for my dad. He already spends every waking moment at the nursing home to make sure she gets the care she needs. I don’t think she’d be doing as well if she didn’t have my dad to look out for her. He’s witnessed so much neglect the past several months. It’s sad.

In the ER I frequently get children who drop off their demented parents who tried to do “the right thing” by caring for their parents. But it is a lot. When they get demented enough they are just like babies except they are bigger, heavier, and when they punch it hurts. Many people just cannot cope with that level of dependency in a loved one.

@jonsblond We kept my mom at home with outside help coming in. It was hard on us, but it would have been harder at a nursing home. It was what my mom wanted. We hired people, but my brother and I took turns going over to her house daily. I would spend an average of 6 hours a day with her, just to make sure all of her needs were met.
We never did put my mom in a nursing home, so I don’t know how she would have been treated.
I know this is weighing on you, and I want to send you {{{hugs}}}.

When you visit a place, first give it the sniff test. If it smells of urine, look elsewhere if you can afford to. Visit as frequently as you can. Eat a meal with your patient to see how they are treated and their needs are being met. Everybody would like to be at home, but if that isn’t possible be there with them as much as you can be.

@Sunny2 when I worked in EMS I called that smell “Eau de Toilet”. about half the nursing homes had it.

I worked, briefly, for 6 months, in an assisted living facility years ago. It was a small, residential facility with only 6 bedrooms and was a nice little place, an old victorian home that had been restored and had a very nice feel and grounds. I loved helping the women and making great meals for them, socializing and making them laugh, but…the owner was a miserly type, and the staff were mostly lowlife types, either very young and rather negligent or druggy/alcoholic types. Myself and the administrator were the only two “normal” intelligent. staff members.

The owner was inexperienced and bought the facility to be a money maker.
I went out of my way to make great food and bring in soecial treats for the ladies.
Once, I went out and bought chocolate ice cream because the ladies were sick of the institutional 5 gallon buckets of vanilla. My boss had a breakdown!
I really enjoyed helping but between the ignorant staff and the miserly owner, I had to go.

Sooo.. in answer to your question…most facilities are all about the money and you will be lucky to find one or two quality caregivers for every dozen idiots, however, dependant on your needs, a smaller residential facility is probably your best bet. The larger institutions are just warehouses for the elderly.

My mother who is 88 and has Alzheimer’s is in a good nursing home. It ALWAYS smells clean there. Not covered up clean…just clean. All the residents look well cared for when I visit. I have had the food myself and it is pretty darn good. The biggest complaint I have is that…it is a nursing home. And that’s not on them. It’s just the way it is. My mom needs 24 hour SKILLED care. I hate that she is in there, but my sister and I nearly lost our minds and our health trying to take care of her.

It all comes down to the three basic factors.
1. Is the management trustworthy and do they support the staff?
2. Does the staff treat the people that they are caring for appropriately?
3. Is there a family member or friend who can be an advocate?

There is probably a fourth, and more likely, the most important. Does the patient want to live? In a time where we have the capability, and often under the law, to keep a person alive even if the patient does not desire to do so, it is difficult to for some people to connect with them.

In looking for a nursing home or any other healthcare provider, it is a combination of doing the research on facilities’ independent reputations as well as touring the sites, not only with a sales rep., but during off-hours to see what the place is really like in the evenings and on weekends.

After what I have experienced with Mom, the hardest part is that, even that while we (children) feel that she is in the best care, it only takes one person with good intentions to do more damage. The staff doesn’t know her like we do. We just have to put our faith in their desire to do the best for their patients.

Of course. It mostly depends on how well the staff who cares for the elderly are paid. Better salaries usually means better care.

The only good think I can say for certain is they help me pay my bills. I sell many products to the Nursing Home industry and they have been good to me. As with anything else, there are some very good homes and some very, very bad homes. To make the best choice, visit the home and ask to take a look at the kitchen and the laundry. That will give you a good idea of how things run.

I have not read the previous answers but I know of two good things:

1. They provide for socialization, for someone who may otherwise live alone and/or sit and watch TV all day, or with an aide who is their sole companion.

2. They provide daily physician services, so if someone needs to be seen by a doctor or have their medications adjusted, instead of having to wait 3 weeks for an appointment and then getting a new prescription, and then 3 more weeks to get looked at again, they can do daily adjustments if necessary.

@mattbrowne I have to disagree. While salary and benefits are important, this is an extremely stressful environment. What nursing care employees want are:
1. The tools and supplies to do their jobs well.
2. Appropriate scheduling of the team. Being short-staffed means that less personal attention can be given to their clients.
3. Recognition. Some of the clients that they lovingly care for all day long are not capable of showing recognition verbally. Hopefully, they get this through the patients’ family and, more importantly, their supervisors.

These are the work environment factors that rank higher than salary and motivate them to get up and go to work each day.

There was recently an expose on one of the Friday night news shows (20/20 or one of them) about some assisted living chain. They were a large corporation, charged a lot, fancy décor, people assumed they were good, and they neglected patients and a few died and the families sued. Cost does not necessarily translate to good service and care.

I mentioned this on another question, but it is worthwhile to mention again. If you’re looking for a good nursing home, go to the people who regulate such businesses (your health department should be able to tell you who to call) and get someone to tell you how to find out the nursing home violations are in your area. They keep a record of all of these. It’s not that you want a nursing home with no violations. Such a thing does not exist, unless it’s brand new. What you want is a nursing home with relatively few violations, and there is not a string of repeats of the same type of violation (which indicates a real problem).

In addition, the best ones aren’t advertised. They are often the small ones- mom and pop ones where the owner knows every patient personally. It’s nice to find a place like this where everyone is treated like family and everyone gets great care.