Pre-shopping for assisted living

UkeSue

New Member
I'm a retired Reference Librarian totally enjoying retirement! I am part of an Anglican church and love British shows and books. I play ukulele with a local group.

I joined this forum to find helpful information about assisted living and health centers. What are folks' experiences with staying at home, home care, decisions on when to move?

I'm excited to be here. These questions are becoming more relevant every day. Thank you so much for any advice you can give me.
 

I'm sure someone can guide you in the right direction @UkeSue :D

Happy to hear you enjoy our Books and TV shows.. particularly the latter..

welcome-London-Big-ben.webp
 

Hi @UkeSue . My situation (financial and otherwise) is such that I intend to look after myself and my apartment as long as possible. This means prioritizing daily exercise and simplifying housework. For example, I don't have any knickknacks or plants to look after. No more fancy cooking; I keep it simple.

Maybe someday I'll have to hire someone for occasional housework. If things get too difficult, I don't know what I'll do.

Good luck figuring out what will work for you!
 
Hi there. First, make sure you designate a Health Care Proxy. A friend or family member who will assure your needs are being met and your wishes (including end of life) are being met. Visit the center, make sure it suits your needs.
If you have medicaid, you can get a personal care assistant through them.CDPAP Consumer Directed Personal Assistant Program.
I have someone that I private pay to help me around the house. I, also do no more fancy cooking. I make things like soup, chili and stuff and freeze individual portions...so I have easy access to home made food. I want to stay in my apartment as long as I can. It is a seniors only apartment building.
And be willing to admit to yourself that there are things you may need a hand with, and that is OK
 
Hi, Sue, and welcome. I have lived in an assisted living facility for 15 years, but am an independent resident. It depends on how old you are before you think about moving into one. I was 75 and recently out of a hospital bed. It has many pluses, and even though there is a separate area for the dementia and Alzheimer groups. one must be prepared to meet some degree of that on the assisted living side as well. It also depends on your financial situation as to what sort of facility you will settle on. Where I live, it's rather active, and even those who aren't too focused on the present are kept pretty busy.

It's nice not to have to shop for food, prepared and cook it for a family, have someone do your laundry and cleaning, and generally keep an eye on you in general.

I do shop and cook for myself at times, if the menus don't appeal to me. Usually, there are a ton of items to choose from, though.

All in all, it is wise to look around and carefully assess what you want before making a decision. It is a pricey way of life, for sure.
 
Hi Sue,
My wife and I live in Missouri, close to Kansas City. We are both going to be 73 this year. We are blessed with good health and live pretty active lives. We both had one of our elderly parents come to a place in Lees Summitt, Missouri called John Knotts. Lees Summitt is a suburb of Kansas City about 40 minutes from where we live.

John Knotts is a retirement community. They offer single family homes, apartments, apartments w/ assisted Living, and a Nursing Home. Once a residency is established within the community you can move to any of the other facilities based on what you need and want. You can move into an assisted living facility if you have a longer-term illness. Then if you get better and want to move back to an apartment, you can do that also. Basically, anything you need they have. In that way all your friends will have access to you and much of the difficulty and worry about such things is limited. My mom love it there and later my wife's father enjoyed his final years these also. When you pass a way, you apartment or home or whatever stays with John Knotts, in that way you never have the burden of ownership.

I think may parts of the country have places like this...it can be a good option.
 
Poor @Bretrick ..he's not going to take kindly to being called an animal...:sneaky::LOL:
Oh, @Bretrick loves all of his wild animal neighbors and friends (and possibly relatives)
so now that I think about it, further,
I don't think he'll mind at all, being associated with them.:sneaky::cool::giggle:

I hope you enjoy humor, Sue,:)
and that sometimes other topics do find their way into our threads, just like might happen with in-person conversations. 🤩
 

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