Some Hope?

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Some Hope?: When I posted the entry just preceding this one ("Losing Hope"), I also tacked on a couple of relevant articles at the bottom, via the Zemanta machine. And then I actually read one of the articles, the one about the apparently dreadful Atria people, who run a bunch of rip-off facilities for the elderly. The article is pretty scary. But then, I got down to the comments, and found this, from "DottiAgingSafely":

"I am an RN that does Long Term Care Placement... What was said in this blog is entirely true [about] large assisted living facilities. It is the marketing folks who are in charge, not the medical... folks can pay these facilities hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years, and if they run out of money they are booted out. We see catastrophic failure after failure because patients are accepted who have no business being in one of these facilities. Dementia clients live behind closed doors by themselves, and their families wonder why they are declining so rapidly... I would encourage a family looking to place their loved one should consult with a... placement professional who knows the Adult Family Home World. I believe it is the cutting edge of long term care as it should be."

So, I thought: a professional placement person?? What is that?? Nobody at my mother's current nursing home has offered me (despite my questions) a shred of advice about where my mother might get the best care, nor have they referred me to someone who could help with that. They just know that they don't want her in their apartments. Their on-site social worker just gives me shrugs, and odd smiles. In my emotionally exhausted state, that took me, yesterday, just nearly to some kind of despair. But after reading that comment, I got back onto the internet, and found an organization called "ElderCareLink." Here's what they say about themselves:

"ElderCarelink is an internet-based referral service-free to consumers-that specializes in eldercare case matching for elders and their families. ElderCarelink assists families in finding a multitude of services, including assisted living, nursing homes, adult day care, private duty nursing, care management and homecare. With participating providers in all 50 states, ElderCarelink identifies qualified eldercare service providers and product suppliers who meet the specific needs for each family's individual situation."

Within a few minutes of filling out their online form, I was talking on the phone with a person in my own city who asked me some more questions, listened to my tale of woe, and gave me all kinds of contact info about a few facilities that might be just what my mother needs. By early this afternoon, I had already toured one facility, and they had sent a nurse out to the nursing home to meet and assess my mother. I was amazed. This was free. I thought it was great, and I was feeling somewhat hopeful... but, see my subsequent post, here.

What I later found out is that the for-free referral service (ElderCareLink; and "A Place for Mom" is another one) was "free" because they get commissions from the corporate assisted-living people when they refer people to them, and these commission-based referral people do not necessarily have the best interests of the elderly person foremost in their minds... They get wined and dined by the corporate assisted-living world, sort of the way physicians get wooed by pharmaceutical reps. Not a good thing for the consumer.

Instead of one of these referral outfits, far better to find an independent professional geriatric consultant. See my subsequent post! It's linked, just above.