Hear author Diane Masson articulate home care, assisted living and skilled nursing costs. Which one do you think costs the most? You might be surprised.
Learn tips on comparing home care to assisted living and how Continuing Care Retirement Communities can offer financial security. She shares what happened when her mother ran out of assets in assisted living and how to plan ahead for future health care costs if you own a home. Diane shares how her mother-in-law is paying $8,000 a month for long-term care and may run out of assets. Be smart and educate yourself before a health care crisis.
Diane Masson has empowered thousands of seniors to plan ahead and gives great tips for adult children whose parents are in a health care crisis. “Your Senior Housing Options,” can answer all your questions and empower you to help any struggling senior. More free tips at Tips2Seniors.com.
After extensive research studying Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRC’s), learn why an active senior couple is moving to a Continuing Care Retirement Community in Orange County. It is called Freedom Village. Regional Marketing Director Diane Masson explains wait lists, the path to residency and shares a surprise for Karen.
Diane Masson has helped thousands of seniors make educated decisions by planning ahead and gives great tips for adult children whose parents are in crisis mode. “Your Senior Housing Options,” has a 5-star rating on Amazon.com. This book can answer all your questions and empower you to help any struggling senior. Knowledge is power and this book gives a comprehensive overview of all senior housing options.
Is your aging parent or senior neighbor struggling? What should you do? Is it really supportive to buy them groceries and watch them struggle to stay home? Is it more caring to help them evaluate assisted living options, so they can thrive again? Learn assisted living pricing tips from an author and senior living expert.
Diane Masson has helped thousands of seniors make educated decisions by planning ahead and gives great tips for adult children whose parents are in crisis mode. “Your Senior Housing Options,” can answer all your questions and empower you to help any struggling senior over the holidays. Find out if staying home with care or assisted living costs more in the long-term.
This video will explain the three levels of care in senior housing. It identifies health requirements to move into an independent retirement community. Learn what happens if a senior or couple qualify to move into a retirement community, then change their mind(s). Can the senior or couple still qualify one year later if their health worsens? When does a senior with memory loss or dementia bypass their opportunity to move into an independent setting at a retirement community? These are expert answers by award winning author Diane Masson. She has written two books about senior housing: “Your Senior Housing Options” for seniors and “Senior Housing Marketing” for professionals.
Diane Masson is the regional marketing director of two Continuing Care Retirement Communities in Southern California, Freedom Village in Lake Forest and The Village in Hemet. Connect with her at tips2seniors.com
Do you know a friend, family member or a senior neighbor who is struggling in their home? Have the day-to-day basics become too much? This video shares some tips on discovering the right time to start exploring senior housing.
Diane provides encouragement to plan ahead and instruction on how to navigate retirement living options. Her personal trials and breadth of experience in the field allows her to identify pitfalls to watch out for and questions to ask. I found this a very readable book that is extremely helpful for retirees and their loved ones with the desire to chart the course for retirement living success.
“Your Senior Housing Options,” is designed to help seniors and their boomer children to navigate choices quickly in crisis mode or preferably while planning ahead. Learn more tips at: Tips2Seniors.com
Can you ever trust a retirement or assisted living community to take care of your mom better than yourself or a family member? Long distance relationships are never easy. Add dementia and hearing loss to the story and long distance communication with a senior parent is impossible.
The only way you really know if your mom or dad is okay is to have eyes on them for yourself. My husband just went 1000 miles by plane, two hours by car and a 20-minute ferry ride to visit his mom, Amy. One year ago, she was hospitalized after her husband had a heart attack. After the trauma of her husband (who was her caregiver for five years) being hospitalized, she eloped and the police had to bring her home. Amy is now in her third licensed assisted living community.
How do you evaluate the care of your senior parent? What should you be looking for or asking about on a one-day long-distant visit?
First, how does mom look? Is her hair washed? Are her clothes clean? Do the other residents look well cared for? The answer to all of these for my mother-in-law was good and yes!
Can she feed herself and how much can she consume? Always stay for at least one meal. My mother-in-law ate three plates of food over four hours by herself and asked for dessert. A year ago, she never wanted to eat, so this was a huge improvement.
Does she know your name? Can she hear? How does she communicate with the caregivers? My mother-in-law introduced my husband (her son) by his full name to a caregiver and said, “This is my number one son.” It was difficult for my husband to communicate with his mom in the dining room, it had too many distractions and was too loud. One-on-one, she could communicate and hear better. Plus, the caregivers actually bent down to talk to her – very nice!
What is mobility like? Is it better or worse? Invite them for a walk to determine the current status quo. The memory care layout can be shaped like a square inside. So they can walk all the way around the square without going outside. Amy and my husband walked it 25 times. She always used her walker and this was a huge improvement.
Observe the activities or it’s even better to become engaged with your dementia parent. Unfortunately not one activity happened at the memory care community on Saturday. One activity was scheduled and it never took place.
Watch the caregivers’ treatment and management of the other residents. This better be good or you need to move your parent ASAP. Amy’s caregivers were super. They treated all the residents well and managed an entire room full of dementia residents simultaneously.
Here was the report card for Amy and the memory care community.
Cleanliness of all residents: B+
Taste of food: B+
Communication with mom: C (The severity of her hearing loss is dictating this score.)
Caregivers interacting with residents: B+
Activities offered: D+ (They did offer to paint her nails or it would have been an F.)
Building layout and community spaces: A
Some of you may want a care conference to meet the key staff like the administrator and the nurse. You can learn exactly what types of care they are providing and details about medication management. We had one of those a few weeks ago, so my husband wanted to spend all his limited time with his mom.
You have to see mom or dad for yourself. Please have one local relative with eyes on your senior.We are so lucky that my sister-in-law does a super job with this. Her regular visits have improved Amy’s mind, attitude and appetite.
Good luck with your long distant visit and hopefully these tips will help you.
If you have a long distant parent, please share your experience in the comment section.
