Anonymous wrote:People also forget that the current generation of 80 and 90 yos did not have the knowledge about nutrition and exercise that we have today. How many 90 yo women did strength training when they were younger? It wasn't a thing so of course, they;re now filling up nursing homes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here- the only additional thing I will flag is that taking care of an older person can be back breaking work, but if it’s a relative you love, it also give a sense of closure and a contour to the end of life. I see a lot of people on this post who also recognize how much is wrong about this system, so that gives me hope.

With all the boomers retiring they really need to give a tax credit for those who have the elderly in their home, just like they give a child tax credit.

I worry about the situation described by the poster who had an elderly relative, confined to a wheel chair being basically left alone all day while caregivers worked full time jobs outside of the home.

She had a roof over her head and food but the quality of her care was exceptionally low to non-existent.

Ok, so who will pay for care in the home. Its a huge issue. If you had an issue with it, you could have offered to help. A tax credit would not help us at all as a few thousand will pay for what a month of care at best? What about the extra space we need due to a small house? What about all the extra expenses like depends that medicaid covers in a nursing home vs. will not pay if at home?

Anonymous wrote:Three of my great grandparents ended their days in the best, priciest nursing homes money can buy, and only after we were no longer able to care for them in family members' homes. One died of Parkinsons, and his last years were agony. He lay in bed and could not move or speak for two years. Another had a stroke, and spent several years in an immobile state: humiliating and agonizing for a previously active, private person.

It was horrific, and it broke each of their hearts to have to leave their homes. And those places WERE horrific.

My beloved grandma had to go into assisted living (again, the very best money can buy), and I will never forget her sorrow the day we helped her pack up to move. It was terrible. It broke something in her.

Those places are horrific for anyone who is a private person who values a home that is a refuge from the world. They are maybe OK for somebody who did not love and cherish a beautiful house for many years, and who does not mind being surrounded by others all of the time, and has a close family member who can visit every single day.

I know I will be miserable in one of those places myself, and I don't want to waste the money it would take to maintain me there when that money could go to my family. I hope euthanasia is an option when my time comes. If it isn't, I'll make a plan to go to Dignitas while I'm still healthy enough to get there myself. That doesn't seem so bad to me, especially when I remember the horrible final years of my great grandparents and grandparents who ended up in nursing homes and assisted living.

Anonymous wrote:No, but for the first 15 years of my life, my great-grandma lived in one. No matter when we went to visit, the place was clean, she was clean and happy, she would show us art she made, introduce us to her friends who lived there, take us on a tour, etc. Her room was bright and sunny, the people who worked there were kind and remembered us, etc.

She was insistent that she did not want to be a burden on family so didn't want to live with her kids or grandkids when she couldn't live by herself anymore. Maybe if she'd lived in a shithole, I'd have a different view of nursing homes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Two words: Vinson Hall. If you are a military family, you have it made. The condos are relatively cheap (if you are old, but do not require much care), and the care in the care facility part is outstanding. It is a damn shame that such a small segment of the population is allowed this level of care.

My friend's MIL is there, and it is night and day compared to regular, very day type care facilities that you and I can afford. There are tons of different military retirement facilities, this is just one example.

Maybe I'm reading it wrong but it looks like the pricing is like $300 per day for the cheaper units there so about $9,000 per month. I'm not sure I would call that cheap.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Two words: Vinson Hall. If you are a military family, you have it made. The condos are relatively cheap (if you are old, but do not require much care), and the care in the care facility part is outstanding. It is a damn shame that such a small segment of the population is allowed this level of care.

My friend's MIL is there, and it is night and day compared to regular, very day type care facilities that you and I can afford. There are tons of different military retirement facilities, this is just one example.

They only take Officers and spouses, not Enlisted.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom's parents both died before this became an issue.
My dad's mother lived to be 99. In the last two years of her life the money left to her ran out. My dad did next to nothing. Let her "friend" take care of things. Grandma ended up in a Medicaid facility in Broward County. It was horrific. She declined very rapidly after that.

I resent my dad so much for not doing anything for her. He's gonna get the same.

Why didn't you help? My MIL is in a medicaid unit. We'd love to do more but we cannot afford to. You have no idea what its like. I was the primary caretaker in my home for a year. I could not leave her alone which meant my kids could not go to preschool or their therapy appointments often and the adult day care was horrible so that was not an option nor could she ride in the car much. I spend my days filing complaints, dealing with the ombudsman, adult protective services, etc. but we cannot move her because few facilities will take medicaid (I have tried several times).

I was in college, living hand to mouth, taking classes full-time and working almost full-time. I saved her from being evicted from her apartment and being put out on the street because I visited her at just the right time and saw paperwork in her kitchen. I insisted to my father she couldn’t keep living on her own after watching her struggle through her daily routine and piss herself all day long. I did the best I could at the time to hold his feet to the fire and even then he needed handholding from his cousin. When the money from my great-uncle’s estate ran out and she was kicked out of her decent nursing home, she went to some random Medicaid facility that was horrible. By this time I was living on my own in DC making $40k a year, maybe 10 years ago. I gave him every single possible informational resource to find her a better place. He signed over power of attorney to her “friend” (who we suspect stole from her) and refused to do anything.

I visited her when she first moved into that place and right before she died and the decline was unbelieveable. Yes she was very old. But she didn’t deserve for my dad to abandon her like that.

"Information" wasn't going to do him any good unless a cheap, high quality place actually existed. Which it probably didn't. What he lacked was not information, but money.

Anonymous wrote:I’m writing this at a bar, drinking a special drink that my dad loved, in honor of his life. He passed this past week. I want to say that hospice was wonderful. He had a cancer diagnosis, and at age 89, he announced he was done and begged for assisted suicide. After making it to my mom’s 80th birthday (they were married nearly 60 years!), my dad entered hospice and died at home on Wednesday. My mom was at his bedside with her hand on his cheek, and I was right next to him. It’s the best outcome I could have imagined, but there are no good outcomes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom's parents both died before this became an issue.
My dad's mother lived to be 99. In the last two years of her life the money left to her ran out. My dad did next to nothing. Let her "friend" take care of things. Grandma ended up in a Medicaid facility in Broward County. It was horrific. She declined very rapidly after that.

I resent my dad so much for not doing anything for her. He's gonna get the same.

Why didn't you help? My MIL is in a medicaid unit. We'd love to do more but we cannot afford to. You have no idea what its like. I was the primary caretaker in my home for a year. I could not leave her alone which meant my kids could not go to preschool or their therapy appointments often and the adult day care was horrible so that was not an option nor could she ride in the car much. I spend my days filing complaints, dealing with the ombudsman, adult protective services, etc. but we cannot move her because few facilities will take medicaid (I have tried several times).

I was in college, living hand to mouth, taking classes full-time and working almost full-time. I saved her from being evicted from her apartment and being put out on the street because I visited her at just the right time and saw paperwork in her kitchen. I insisted to my father she couldn’t keep living on her own after watching her struggle through her daily routine and piss herself all day long. I did the best I could at the time to hold his feet to the fire and even then he needed handholding from his cousin. When the money from my great-uncle’s estate ran out and she was kicked out of her decent nursing home, she went to some random Medicaid facility that was horrible. By this time I was living on my own in DC making $40k a year, maybe 10 years ago. I gave him every single possible informational resource to find her a better place. He signed over power of attorney to her “friend” (who we suspect stole from her) and refused to do anything.

I visited her when she first moved into that place and right before she died and the decline was unbelieveable. Yes she was very old. But she didn’t deserve for my dad to abandon her like that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom's parents both died before this became an issue.
My dad's mother lived to be 99. In the last two years of her life the money left to her ran out. My dad did next to nothing. Let her "friend" take care of things. Grandma ended up in a Medicaid facility in Broward County. It was horrific. She declined very rapidly after that.

I resent my dad so much for not doing anything for her. He's gonna get the same.

Why didn't you help? My MIL is in a medicaid unit. We'd love to do more but we cannot afford to. You have no idea what its like. I was the primary caretaker in my home for a year. I could not leave her alone which meant my kids could not go to preschool or their therapy appointments often and the adult day care was horrible so that was not an option nor could she ride in the car much. I spend my days filing complaints, dealing with the ombudsman, adult protective services, etc. but we cannot move her because few facilities will take medicaid (I have tried several times).

I was in college, living hand to mouth, taking classes full-time and working almost full-time. I saved her from being evicted from her apartment and being put out on the street because I visited her at just the right time and saw paperwork in her kitchen. I insisted to my father she couldn’t keep living on her own after watching her struggle through her daily routine and piss herself all day long. I did the best I could at the time to hold his feet to the fire and even then he needed handholding from his cousin. When the money from my great-uncle’s estate ran out and she was kicked out of her decent nursing home, she went to some random Medicaid facility that was horrible. By this time I was living on my own in DC making $40k a year, maybe 10 years ago. I gave him every single possible informational resource to find her a better place. He signed over power of attorney to her “friend” (who we suspect stole from her) and refused to do anything.

I visited her when she first moved into that place and right before she died and the decline was unbelieveable. Yes she was very old. But she didn’t deserve for my dad to abandon her like that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom's parents both died before this became an issue.
My dad's mother lived to be 99. In the last two years of her life the money left to her ran out. My dad did next to nothing. Let her "friend" take care of things. Grandma ended up in a Medicaid facility in Broward County. It was horrific. She declined very rapidly after that.

I resent my dad so much for not doing anything for her. He's gonna get the same.

Have you checked out the annual cost or even just the monthly cost of a nursing home? Your dad probably couldn't afford to move her anywhere better.

20 years ago when my dad was in a nursing home it cost 48K/year and that was for the basics. And, since you have no idea how long they'll live you don't know if they'll be there for 1 year or 20 years. How do you budget for that and try to keep a roof over your own head at the same time?

You just have to pick the lesser of the evils in that situation. It's sad.

Many people work their entire lives and still never can save at a minimum wage job. Think about all the service workers and workers who work at the nursing homes on minimum wage. People make it so easy but its not.