Nursing Homes - What is a Nursing Home?

A Nursing Home is also known as a Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF). These facilities have registered nurses who provide 24-hour care to people who can no longer care for themselves due to physical, mental, or emotional conditions. A physician supervises each patients care. Most nursing homes have two basic types of services: skilled medical care and custodial care.

Nursing Home Features:

These facilities usually offer private and semi-private rooms. You will find that they have bathrooms located within the rooms and shower rooms located outside the rooms for safety purposes. They are defiantly becoming more home-like with carpeting throughout. Many even have house pets.

Skilled Care includes services of trained professionals that are needed for a period of time following an injury or illness:

• A physical therapist helps with strength and balance
• A speech therapist helping a person regain the ability to communicate after a stroke.
• An occupational therapist helping a person relearn independent self-care in areas such as dressing, grooming and eating.
• Registered Nurses care for wounds and administer IV’s.

Custodial Care is for people who are losing their ability to function independently due to chronic disease and increasing frailty, custodial care may be a long-term need. In severe cases a person is bed-bound, ongoing supervision by an RN . If a custodial care

This is also available on a long term basis of care if a resident requires injections, ventilation or other treatments of that include assistance with what are known as the activities of daily living, such as: dressing, eating, grooming, transferring and toileting.

What services does a Nursing Home offer?

Assisted Living is typically for those seniors who can no longer manage on their own but not need the intensive, 24-hour complex medical services of traditional long-term care. The average assisted living resident is 83 years old and requires assistance with at least two Daily living activities (refer to above section) . About 60% of these residents are female.

How do I know when its time to consider Assisted Living?

Signs:

• lack of food in the refrigerator or placing more to-go orders on a regular basis may signal a driving difficulty or fear
• Personal hygiene changes such as a failure to bathe on a daily basis or wearing the same clothes everyday
• A dirty home that was formerly very neat or the house not being cleaned on a regular basis.
• Constant complaints and excessive tiredness could be a possible sign of depression or loneliness.
• Forgetfulness such as forgetting to take medications, leaving food cooking on the stove, the phone left off the hook or bills left unpaid.