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Recently I heard from Sarah, an old friend, about a hard situation she's in that I'm sure many Caring.com readers can relate to. Sarah's mother-in-law moved in with her and her family more than a year ago, and since then Sarah's had a really hard time dealing with her husband's siblings, who aren't helping out as much as they promised.

But what Sarah's finding even more stressful is that the expense -- both in direct costs and in time lost from work -- of having an elderly person join the household is much greater than she expected. And what really galls her? No one else in the family seems motivated to chip in. "This summer it really got to me," Sarah told me. "We were stuck here in the Midwest heat, working ourselves to the bone keeping up with our jobs and caring for mom, while my husband's sister's family went to the Bahamas, and his brother and his wife spent weeks at their lake cabin...  Read more

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Finding and choosing a nursing home isn't an easy thing to do. In fact, many people find it so daunting they don't know where to start. A new study published this week makes the decision process a little easier with some simple advice: When possible, choose a nonprofit, rather than a for-profit nursing home.

Researchers reviewed the quality of care at tens of thousands of nursing homes in the U.S. and Canada, and found that nonprofit homes consistently had higher and better qualified staffing and less use of restraints to confine patients. (The two measures are related, of course; if you have more caregivers, there are more people to watch over patients and less need to restrain or confine them.)

Patients at nonprofit homes also had fewer bedsores, and the facilities had fewer citations for quality violations than for-profit facilities. The study was done at McMaster University in Ontario, where researchers conducted a review and statistical analysis of 83 different quality of care studies between 1965 and 2003...  Read more

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Newsflash: Thanks to a Fire Sale in senior housing, assisted living and other senior housing options might be more affordable than you think. In fact, spend some time bargain shopping and you might be able to save a lot of money.

A few months ago, news reports were filled with stories of older adults who couldn't sell their homes because of the market crash, making it impossible for them to realize their hopes of moving into retirement housing or assisted living facilities.

Recently, an unexpected upside has resulted from this difficult situation; Senior housing facilities, facing rising vacancy rates and a smaller pool of applicants with ready cash, are discounting rooms, waiving deposits and membership fees, and even, in some cases, offering the initial month rent-free as move-in enticements.

In some hard-hit areas such as Florida, the result has been a "fire sale" atmosphere with vacancy rates that have risen as much as 20 to 30 percent...  Read more

Adjusting to a communal living setting is always challenging, and if you're in a caregiving role to an elder who has recently moved into a retirement community, you can expect to get a frantic call or two early on -- maybe even a "Get me out of here!"

Usually, time resolves these settling-in anxieties. But there's one group of seniors who often face an extra set of challenges. Across the country, gay and lesbian elders who've moved to retirement communities report being ostracized, mocked, and harassed not only by fellow residents, but also sometimes by staff.

One state, California, has responded with a law aimed at preventing anti-gay bias in senior care facilities through staff training.

Another answer is retirement communities developed with the needs of gays and lesbians specifically in mind. The few already in business have waiting lists, and the others now in development are likely to see a booming business...  Read more

When my 87-year-old father found himself in a nursing home after a hospitalization, the first thing he did was demand his car keys. I had to beg, bargain, and cajole just to get him to agree to stay for the few weeks he needed to heal from a serious infection.

It never crossed my mind that the real problem facing growing numbers of older Americans was just the opposite -- they want and need to be in nursing homes, but those facilities are increasingly evicting them if their care grows too complex or they run through their assets and turn to Medicaid to cover the cost.

According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, across the country "nursing homes are forcing out frail and ill residents." While there's no official count of nursing home evictions, formal complaints about discharge practices have doubled over the past decade, to more than 8,000 a year at last count.

I asked Caring...  Read more

Recent headlines paint a troubling picture for seniors hoping to live out their years in assisted living.

• A new study from Prudential finds that assisted living costs are up 13 percent from two years ago, averaging $3,241 per month nationwide, or about $108 a day.
• NPR reports on a large assisted living chain that has been evicting elderly residents when they run through their life savings and turn to Medicaid to pay the bills. Overall, according to the NPR piece, the assisted living industry has little space for those without assets -- while the number of assisted living communities has mushroomed in recent years, the number of beds for Medicaid recipients has dropped, to about 10 percent of the total.
• Fox New offers a troubling image of 100 or so elderly folks camped out overnight in the hope of getting an application for hard-to-get affordable senior housing units in Houston, where more than 600 are already on waiting lists...  Read more

The first time I heard the term NORC (short for Naturally Occurring Senior Community) was from my 81-year-old mother, who is determined to live out her days in her comfortable cul-de-sac home rather than moving to a retirement community.

In a NORC, I learned from the file that my mother and a neighbor had pulled together, a neighborhood evolves over time and ends up with a large concentration of seniors, who then organize -- generally with the help of a community agency -- to share services and support. A lead agency coordinates with community programs, ranging from hospitals and Area Agencies on Aging to local catering and home repair businesses, which seniors can then access with a single phone call.

I found the concept so intriguing that I wrote an article for Caring.com about NORCs and other "aging in place" communities. Meanwhile, my mother and her neighbor never got past the keeping-a-file stage...  Read more

Several recent studies confirm the notion that age confers a certain measure of wisdom. For example, researchers at the University of Texas found that people 60 and older reported more feelings of peace and calm than did their younger counterparts. And a study in the journal Neurobiology of Aging concluded that older people are better able to control and regulate their emotions than younger people are.

If you're caring for an elderly parent or relative, you may be skeptical of these findings, especially if you're frustrated by loved ones' refusal to take steps that seem logical for their own health and safety.

For example, you may find your parents' refusal to leave their cluttered, unmanageble home for an assisted living facility unfathomable -- and extremely unwise. You're baffled by how stubbornly your parents resist your reasonable arguments (and the lure of the glossy brochures you bring by to tempt them)...  Read more

I will never forget the image of my grandfather lying in his bed in a skilled nursing facility in Wyoming, clutching his wooden cane. Another resident had taken an unfriendly interest in him and would steal the shoes right off his feet, and my grandfather felt the need to defend himself even in his sleep.

New research from Cornell University helps explain my grandfather's hyper-vigilance. Aggression and violence among nursing home residents, the researchers found, is much more common than is generally recognized, with "serious consequences for both aggressors and victims."

Researchers at a large urban nursing home documented 35 types of physical and verbal abuse, including screaming, pushing, punching, and fighting. In a related study, nurse-observers reported 30 episodes of resident-to-resident aggression during a single 8-hour shift.

Unfortunately, the study's authors were short on solutions...  Read more