uh do you know anyone that uh has is in a nursing home or has ever been in one
no but i my grandparents were looking into it before so i know what they've said
uh-huh
um-hum
well i'm trying to think my uh
uh wife's grandmother had Alzheimer's and they were going to put her into a a nursing home and uh
they when they put her in she had all kinds of trouble and the nursing home made them come and
take her back because she was being a a you know a a nuisance or worse than a nuisance i mean she she sort of went you know bananas and they couldn't couldn't deal with her
oh they thought it was too much of a bother
so i guess you need to uh know whether it's a you know no deposit no return kind of thing whether
right
if they're equipped too to handle the kind of patients you're gonna have you know to put in there too because i know my grandparents wanted to have some independence still
yeah
right
they wanted someplace they can go and have their meals and
a nurse on staff just in case they needed her but they wanted to be independent as well
right
have their own room
my grandmother actually was in a a nursing home that um there was a retirement hotel and then a uh
there was some sort of full-time care place that was also associated with it so for
um the first few years she had her own apartment and you know made her own meals sometimes but could could also go and eat someplace else
um-hum
and then um as she became less able to take care of herself then she moved into this other part that was able to
um provide full-time care and um she didn't have to do anything anymore
but my experience has been that most people that move into nursing homes die very quickly and that's
some i don't know whether that's because they you know sort of give up hope once they get in there or
what the what the reason is but i think the average length of time that somebody lives in a nursing home is only like six months or something
well a lot of that's probably to do with the fact that people go to it because they need help they need health care so they're already ill before they go
yeah
right
that's probably a large factor
yeah if
if you can take care of yourself at all or have someone that can take care of you then you
stay where you are and then you only go there as a last resort
um-hum
or people send you there as a last resort
right right
that's my grandparents it was just so that
the rest of the relatives would have peace of mind knowing that if anything happened there was somebody there for them
uh-huh
so that was their thinking somebody who would know what to do in the event of an emergency
right
and also so they could find someplace they enjoyed while they still had
choices to make so they wouldn't be stuck going into just whatever nursing home was available at the time i guess that's a problem too for people wait lists
right
and all that um you can't always get in when you want to and of course you can't just sit around and wait
yeah i guess
right when you need it you need it i guess
yeah and the money is also another issue how you're gonna pay for it
right
at that stage of life you only have so much money left and
i guess it's not exactly fair for the younger family members to have to put in their savings i mean it is kind of fair but it's also not fair because they have their own children to raise
yeah
sure
so that's another problem
and you probably if it were you you probably wouldn't want someone choosing a place for you to live based on lowest price
right right
so it's it's just so complicated anymore i think people outlive their savings and with medicine being the way it is you're extending life
where sometimes the quality of living has gone down and they're not necessarily enjoying life anymore
yeah
well maybe that's the purpose of the nursing home is to have them go someplace where they can see that it's not worth continuing
it's just a shame that's the way it has to be i think the retirement home idea's a nice idea to go and find older people and with similar interests and someplace to stay and
yeah
because uh like if your spouse died all of a sudden you be all alone it'd be nice to go someplace people similar to you and have friends
right
i i've known quite a few people that have um gone to retirement communities i don't know if they have them back there but
here in California and in Arizona
