guidelines question: when LTC and when AL

there is nothing written in stone.

when someone observes the person to be a safety risk to him/herself is the time to consider long term care.

good luck.

leslie

There are assisted living demetia units, which are wonderful, so dementia is not always a reason to choose nursing care over assisted living. In our assisted living center (not a dementia AL) residents must be able to handle their own toileting, managing of their incontinent product. They must be capable of ambulating to the dining area. They must be able to do their ADLs.

I worked in an assisted living facility as a nurses aid while I was a student nurse. I found that this facility liked to hang onto to their private pay clients for as long as they could even though that client really belonged in a SNF. If a client is medicaid, guess what?? They get the boot if they need added care.

This depends on alot, do you find this person in the parking lot at 3 am , can they go to the bathroom by themselves ,do simple adl's? Are they alert and oriented to at least 2? Are they losing weight,do they eat with there hands,have they created poo poo art? Normaly people dont just wake up and have such dementia they need different placement. You should be able to watch whomever for a couple days and tell ... Good luck

In general........when the person becomes a 2-person transfer or needs total care for ADLs, when they can no longer feed themselves, when their diabetes requires sliding scale insulin and frequent interventions, when they wander or become violent as the result of progressing dementia, that's when assisted living is no longer appropriate and a nursing home should be considered. It's too bad that there aren't more continuing care retirement communities; this way, residents can truly 'age in place' and remain in familiar surroundings, even as they require more care. I hope CCRCs will become more well-known as the population ages; there's going to be an awful lot of old folks in the coming decades, and we're not going to stand for the status quo!