okay
okay
so what do you think about it should
um i like the idea of nursing homes as a as a growing
choice the choices you have in nursing homes now whereas used to you used to have only you put you know when when people got to the point where they were debilitated and couldn't take care of themselves and there was no other choice you couldn't take them in your own home then they went into a nursing home you know maybe you lived
uh-huh
too far away to care for them or your daily job or whatever prevented it
right
but um i like the choices you have now where they can go into an apartment type setting and have some basically have a independent lifestyle but assisted care
yeah
and then if things deteriorate they can go to a second level which is
you know like where they prepare their meals for them and and they still live somewhat independently but they have people checking on them and making sure they have hot meals and then where the same community a lot of times will also have the third level which is full care
uh-huh
uh-huh
you know where some people can't where they're in a wheelchair or where they're in a bed and they can't get around but then they have full care but i really like those those options now and and i think about it more often because my husband's parents
uh-huh
are they're very active right now but they're seventy five and and seventy two
so that comes up somewhat more often in my thoughts as i see these things because of their age
uh-huh
yes um it's it's funny because um i know people at that are in all three and people that work you know i know someone that works works in all three different stages like you said
uh-huh
and i have known you know people close to me that have been in all three and i have seen them like go from where they're in an apartment building they we call it um
well we have high rises and it's just for elderly people you know or most of most of one of their spouses has already passed away
uh-huh
and it's really nice for them because then they're with people their own age and people that have gone through things exactly what they have gone through
uh-huh
and it's it's really nice to go and see them you know where they can still get around and everything and they still you know do their own thing
but it's it's really nice to see them because i mean sometimes like i had a great aunt she lived with us for um three months and because she's starting to get Alzheimer's disease
uh-huh
uh-huh
and i know i have a bunch of younger brothers and sisters and i know it was hard for me as well as it was for them to to actually sit down because she doesn't like doing things that the younger kids like doing
right
and to actually sit so it's really nice to see that
yeah that's some of the things i would find important before i i would look into that for a person is is is like you're saying a good mix of people who have the same interests and uh and the programs here they have different
uh-huh
uh besides just different levels within the same program they have different types of programs they have several areas they have one area in town where the people
i guess a lot of it comes with money it this this one area is a bit more expensive and the people who probably are living there have had more money in their life but but things that people where they have similar interests
uh-huh
like you're saying and the programs that they have where where some of them will have dances once a week and some of them sponsor different crafts and they go to the arboretum to see things and they make sure that if they want to go to church there's a bus there
yeah
uh-huh
and it'll or you know or someone will transport them to a specific church even though it's
you know maybe it's thirty minutes away because it's a big you know Dallas area is a big metropolitan area but a lot of these places have have churches or have have individual transportation that's that's something i'd look for something that would make me happy
yeah
personally if i had to live there because i don't think a lot of people really even in the nice ones and even in the ones where they can live fairly independently they really don't necessarily like it because they're not in their own home
uh-huh
yeah
uh-huh
so i think those kinds of things to make it more home like and to make it more um
enjoyable for them that'd that'd be one thing i'd look for along with the uh health care aspects to make sure they had you know that it was clean and that they had good doctors and nurses
uh-huh
yeah um i'm in college and i'm i'm only twenty one but we had a speech i had a speech class last semester and there was a girl in my class who did a speech on home care of the elderly
uh-huh
and i was so surprised to hear how many people like whenever they're in you know the older people they're like um fastened to their beds so they can't get out just because they you know they wander the halls
uh-huh
and they get the wrong medicine just because you know the the aides or whoever just give them the wrong medicine and so many of them you know are
yeah
are overmedicated too
yes and it was it was awful to hear what you know what some of these people really went through And i forget the percentage of people that you know that she had said and this was i mean she did research on it and everything
uh-huh yeah that's one of the things that that we don't think about as we get older and the the money that it now requires
to uh be in one of these places because some of these people that are just on social security and if they don't have any living relatives perhaps they never had children or if their children you know passed away before they did they can be in some places that are
uh-huh
you know that that are not good where they they have very minimum minimal care and the the care that they are getting the people who are giving it
yeah
are probably are paid at a minimum wage and they just do they don't care as much and and like you said they're trying to make it the caretakers in some cases are trying to make easy on themselves
yeah
to the point where they're putting people in bed or overmedicating them so they'll stay in one spot and not do anything that certainly would be something to to watch for because you've got with some of them being some of these places can even be two and three thousand dollars a month to stay in fee
uh-huh
i know and some and sometimes they share a room and it's just a little cubbyhole and they share it with another person and they're still paying that much it it it just sometimes it just seems ridiculous
yeah
oh yeah so you've
yeah you've got to really strike a balance in what kind of care
what kind of level of care you need and then what you can unfortunately what you can afford at the same time
uh-huh uh-huh yeah um i've been lucky well
my mom's um parents they're both in their
in their uh eighties and i was just home for spring break and my grandma said something to me about she goes well maybe we'll just sell the house she said it's getting too big for us to take care of and i was like no no no stay in the house as long as you can
well like there are other communities too that aren't necessarily a nursing home i had an aunt who lived in a small town in Texas that um was in a
it was a it was a housing division each person had their own little bitty house that they had built and it was um
uh-huh
supplemented their they were most of them were on social security and they got some kind of supplemental aid besides from the state government but it was this little bitty one bedroom house
but it was a separate house and they had a living room and a bedroom and a kitchen and a bathroom
oh
so they still had they had and they had people who came in who um supervised them all these houses were like fifteen or twenty of them all right together kind of like on one block and they had a a supervisory um
uh-huh
wasn't a house really it was it was more like a
it sounds like uh an apartment or some
a headquarters or something anyway where they they staffed it three shifts a day so that someone if they needed someone they could ri ng and and someone could come to their house
oh yeah
and that and they always cooked then they had they had the choice you know they lived in their own little house they had their own possessions still in there to some extent you know some of them
uh-huh
uh-huh
and they could make their own breakfast if they wanted to and their own dinner and they always had somebody come in for lunch
but they had people who did you know they didn't have to mess with the yard they had people who did the yard and they had a maid that uh uh service that came in and cleaned everybody's house so they didn't have to worry about that and it was really a nice
uh-huh
oh yeah
it was really a nice compromise especially because she felt like she was still living in her own house and she still had her own couch and her own bed and it it really helped a lot and she was a lot more comfortable and she didn't
uh-huh
oh really
yeah
see now we've run into a lot of problems where our relatives were well i've lived here for thirty years and we've built this and this is our home and we have nothing else to show for our lives and we don't want to leave uh we've run into a lot of that
yeah
oh yeah
yeah it would be hard to that's that's why this she was she felt that way too but when it helped that she got to still be in a house and still have some of her own stuff
um
yeah
and i guess that that it was a pilot program i think where she lived so it's probably not widely available
uh-huh yeah that's what like well um
now i know we have an old we call it an old folks home but it's basically a nursing home too but everyone has basically their own room
yeah
and they're allow you know they none of them have cars because they can't drive
uh-huh
but if someone would come to get them you know they're allowed to leave with them and there's a staff there that makes supper for them and each person has a chore like maybe Wednesday night it's George's turn to set all the tables
huh
and it's really nice because that keeps them going too rather than just sitting around and i know um our youth group goes over and we play bingo with them and you know like stuff like that
yeah
well that's good
everybody needs some sense of responsibility
uh-huh yeah just to keep them going
an even even if it's just a little bit yeah
uh-huh
so it's it's more like living with a big in a big house where it's your turn to to set the table like you're saying or whatever instead of being waited on hand and foot all the time yeah that would be nice
yeah
uh-huh
but i think before i like you i don't think you i don't think it's right to just put someone in it i think they would have to agree to go in it
yes unless they're at a point where they're mentally incapacitated
well yeah
say like you're saying with Alzheimer's and
going to be
the people who have to be there
uh-huh
that's when it's important to really check out the medical aspects of it when you're when you're in something like that that they'll get the kind of medical care they want without or
uh-huh
overdoing it
uh-huh
yeah
so
uh-huh
