Has anyone here experienced care for a loved one in a private home instead of a nursing home? MY DH is not ready at this time for either. However, I thought I would just check on several of both types this AM. I was amazed at the difference in costs. Several NH that I checked were $4,500 to over $5,000 per month. The private homes that I checked that had room for 6 to 8 persons only charged between $2,800 to $3,000 per month. I only checked the places that would take AD persons.
Years ago my brother was a quad and he was in a private home and loved it. Had great care.
If you search for a discussion I did on "things I wish I had known", you will see a post I did on Andrea being in a private home. I've also posted about it in several other places.
I can't type fast enough or long enough to say how much I love her home. I truly feel this was the best move I ever could have made. Because I was out of the loop and zonked out in the hospital, my children had to find a home for Andrea on thier own. They looked at NH after NH, and came home very discouraged, both over prices and conditions. When Tina found the private home, she was guilty that it only cost $2300 and felt she was surely selling her mom out for poor care. Nothing could be further from the truth. She checked into it very carefully, looking for problems. Andrea is truly receiving the best care she possibly could. I believe that with all my heart. She feels like she is in a house, not an institution. I could go on and on. But my fingers get tired. So if you want to know more about my wife's home, the services they offer, and everything else my daughter found out while she was scoping out the different facilities, I hope you will contact my daughter via email. She will gladly talk to you about it and tell you everything she found out. Click on trisinger abover here; I think that's how you get the email.
Thanks so much. What a great reply. I have posted on several discussions that one of my major concerns about my DH is the fact that I am 13 years older then he is and doing the research I did this morning has eased my mind that there are affordable places that he could afford if something happened to me.
My husband was in a private type home for three years during the "bad" part of this disease. In our case the cost was more than a NH would have been, but no NH would take him because he was young and aggressive and they worried about the other elderly residents. His private home was a secure home that specialized in dementia care. There were nine residents and each had their own bedroom and bathroom. It was a beautiful home with fireplaces and nice furniture. I know he didn't appreciate all the "pretty" things, but it made it nice for me to be there as much as I was. I was very happy with the situation, but I was facing having to move him because he could no longer make a "pathway to safety" on his own in case of an emergency. So, my options were to hire a private caregiver, move him to a traditional NH or bring him home. I chose to bring him home because he was no longer able to walk and I could handle him at home with just a few hours of care a week to bathe him. It worked for us....
I'm glad to see someone else asking about this because I have been looking @ these homes as well lately as an alternative too. I am not sure it will be covered by our LTC insurance, but they are checking into it now for me. I too worry that something might happen to "me" and our kids would have to make a quick decision, so I'm trying to check into things now, even before I need them. And, in doing so, I'm finding that they have "respite care", which means I could take my DH there over the weekend, still remain in town, but be "alone" vs. care-giving 24x7...it might be a nice "relief", and, then he would be 'familiar' with the home too, in the event he had to go there, it wouldn't be a total "new experience"...of course, I'm counting on him liking it AND remembering it, which I think goes hand in hand. If they are kind & he enjoys the experience, I do believe somehow he'd "remember" being there, if he had to go at some point.
Most of these houses do accept private pay or LTC. Many of them do NOT accept Medicaid and such. Our home's reason for not taking gov't plans is that they would have to spend too much time on paperwork and follow regulations that they feel to be asinine. When you walk into a nursing home, what are they doing? Sitting at the nurses' station filling out endless notebooks of information. That's all very nice, but the patients are sitting like zombies. When you walk into Andrea's home, the caregivers are sitting at the tables talking with them, or walking with them outside, or tending to them. Sure, they have notebooks, I know that paper trails are important, but the patients, not the notebooks, run the home where Andrea is. I didn't keep a notebook, and I was a very good caretaker!
Anyway, like I said....I could go on and on... yhc
I had a dear friend who ended up in a NH. She was so depressed, we thought she'd die. She went to a private home care and thrived until she passed away. My friend didn't have AD but there were two women in there who did have AD. She also had a gentleman who had some other form of dementia. I believe she had 5 clients at the time. The owner was an RN and she ran a lovely home. Very open, cheerful. Her helpers were very nice women. We aren't ready for this yet, but when the time comes, I am definitely looking into private home care.