assisted livivng facility vs nursing home?

AnxiousStrawberry · May 21, 2010

I work in an assisted living facility. When I come in im either in charge of kitchen, B&Bs, or activites. If im kitchen I do a small activitie, set up for dinner, stock our small kitchen on the unit, and serve up the food. If im B&Bs I assist residents with tolieting. And if im activities I do actvities during the afternoon with the residents. Everyone helps serves dinner, and then helps with cleanup. After dinner we have more actitivies and then snack. Once snack is done we begin taking the residents back to their rooms to get ready for bed or for showers. We're also responsible for lighthouse keeping and some laundry.

MurrR · May 21, 2010

Hey, I'm still doing clinicals but I did the majority of my shifts in an A/L and I've just completed my first of 2 shifts in a nursing home with a skilled unit. At the A/L facility it was very light work for the most part unless a lot of lights were on all at once. We had two people who were totally dependent and those were pretty much the only brief changes/bed baths that we had. Everyone else could, with help, shower on their own, dress, feed themselves, etc. Most of our duties consisted of helping out with daily living.

In the nursing home last night - Evening shift, which I think I love! - it was much a heavier work load. People needed bedpans, brief changes almost every 10 minutes or so it seemed, only two people needed help with eating but their families were there which was nice. I was working in the skilled unit, most of those residents are expected to leave and go back home or to another level of care at some point. Most of them are recovering from this or that. I think it's a little different in the rest of the facility where it's a more typical LTC setting.

casi, ASN, RN · May 21, 2010

Assisted Livings can vary greatly. It all depends on what kind of patients the ALs accept. There are some in my area that once you need more than an assist of one or need someone else to give you your insulin your out.

The AL I worked in was a completely different story. We had the basic AL apartment where the residents were lighter cares. We then had CareSuites which was the nursing home level cares. There we kept the total cares, hoyers, and feeding tubes. We also had a memory care unit where we could take total cares that wandered.

The biggest difference in AL and LTC is in AL a lot of times it is the aide passing pre-set up meds. Also in most ALs the nurse is only there from 9-5.