Reported on this already, but after a couple of hospitalizations for pneumonia, the doctor said my Alzheimer's dad should go to a nursing home as memory care would not suffice. The difference being 24 hours nurses in nursing home versus nurses during regular hours but only nursing assistants with nurses on call after that. Yet the nursing home he is now at has one LPN for the whole floor during evening and night hours, not a big improvement over the memory care. Plus, the nursing home is twice as much money, and in a nursing him he shares a hospital like room where in the memory care he would have a private studio type suite. I can hardly imagine the extra cost is worth having one LPN on staff in the evening. What are the chances an LPN could prevent a problem versus nursing assistants not doing it? Even if something did happen to my dad, it would be in a comfortable place, not a depressing nursing home. Why did the hospital doctor insist he needed a nursing home. I contacted my dads primary care doctor and even conceded a nursing home was not a big step up from memory care. Furthermore, if I understand correctly, the intaking memory care needs to make an ethical and professional assessment that they can indeed provide the needed care. The memory care is a half a mile from my moms home, versus eight miles for the nursing home. I think his quality of life would be better at the memory care. In addition, the hospice services would visit him at either place. What am I missing?
edit: Be aware that some facilities promise much but deliver little, I know of places where caring staff is stressed to the max because they can not deliver what management is expecting and as a result the residents suffer.
Dr Gawande talks about the questions our loved ones need to have an opportunity to answer at the end of life for what’s important to them.
For a dementia patient I think it can also give you confidence to make the quality of life decisions and feel good about it.