Reply #25: we need to make sure that the elderly receive the best care possible ...

[etherealtruth]

... sometimes that occurs in their home, the homes of their children (or other relatives) and sometimes the best choice is a nursing home.

My first career was as a nurse .... I consistently tell my children that if it were to become necessary they should place me in a nursing home without guilt or hesitation (of course this is followed by a long list of "how to identify a good nursing home" criteria).

My ten years in nursing was spent (largely) in two specialties; the first was gero-psych and the second (and lions share) was Hospice nursing (when hospice care was in the waning stages of a grass-roots movement in health-care). Though, I have taught and witnessed family member care givers learn and do amazing things .... the important thing is to recognize our own limitations ... be they financial (I have two parents in their early 70's .... I also have two teen-aged children ... I could NOT quit my job to provided 24 hour care), be temperament (I am not necessarily a patient person) ... or whatever ... believe me, though most people can be taught procedures .... many, many people just can't do them for a loved one.

I have witnessed the horrific toll taking care of someone with a dementing illness can take on a family .... the dangers the patient and family 9caregivers) can be placed in.

The simple act of placing a loved one in a nursing home does NOT make them an a$$-hole.


"NURSING HOME PATIENTS: (2000) About 2/3rd's of people in nursing homes have no living relatives. And about 70% of all nursing home patients are women."
http://www.efmoody.com/longterm/nursingstatistics.html

Roughly 4.4 percent of the elderly population lives in nursing homes. Nursing home care is a $100 billion per year industry, with about 90 percent of its services consumed by the elderly.<7> The total expenditure on nursing home care per elderly resident is about $52,000 per year, on average, and Medicaid pays for nearly $25,000 of that, on average.
http://www.heritage.org/research/healthcare/wm875.cfm