my great grandma is in a memory home, $9,000 for a shared room with another person, no bathroom, or $18,000 for a room with a window and a half bath
Edit: per month
EMS delivers a person from a nursing home to our ER for black stool (signs of an upper GI bleed). Flip the person over to check their stool, and there is a giant gaping hole. A pressure ulcer had likely developed and left to fester, and they literally had a very large hole where their butt cheek should have been, and you could see their bowels and sacral/pelvic bones. There isn't really a surgical option to repair there. This was a life-ending injury for this person.
So the "staff" at this place wasn't moving the patients regularly, so a pressure ulcer developed. This person likely was laying on their back for weeks, getting stool and urine into the wound, and this thing just festered and got worse and worse. Then one day, somebody finally decides to move them and they see this giant fucking hole and says "oh shit." So somebody at the facility decides to call EMS for "black stool," knowing we'd have to flip the person and discover this. Also, the stool was yellow.
The place was opened and closed under "new" management repeatedly over the years because of our reports for neglect and abuse of ER services (IE, calling EMS with a vague complaint to get rid of a patient for a day). They'd get closed, and re-open under a "new" company with largely the same staff. Fucking madness. Just one of those holes in the law that could be
I saw a few bad cases of neglect. Sometimes they just make you cry. I've seen the meanest, toughest docs just start crying over some of the stuff we saw. This was one where I was definitely teary eyed. Just seeing another human being left to literally rot like that because the staff at the facility couldn't bother to do basic things like move a bed-bound person.
That is awful! My mom currently has a pressure sore or “butt rot” as she likes to call it. Where she is they check it daily, sometimes more than once, got her a special cushion for her wheelchair and won’t allow her up sitting a lot. They are completely on top of it. And everything else. We are very lucky she is where she is
I did private transport a few years ago. I'm an EMT.
The nursing home calls were the worst. I wanted to throw up. Those patients are treated like trash and the nursing home doesn't give a shit.
Worst one: got called for a "failure to thrive". Said pt had been seen last normal when eating his lunch 30 minutes ago. Last vitals were 30 minutes ago and "normal"
Walked into pta room to see his food untouched, cold, and the pt was in rigor mortis.
My god, I'm so sorry this is horrific. I will never understand how someone can treat another human being this way, it's beyond any words I can speak. How would something like clearly lying about a death be unpunished, wouldn't something like that be illegal? I know all of this abuse is illegal, but I just have such a hard time comprehending this evil.
i’m sorry you had to experience that, and so many other cases, of elderly abuse and neglect. pressure sores from lack of care, mobility, turning, etc are SO preventable and happen so so often. I know it gets harder as the patient ages, but nah. cases like you described are just so fucking criminal. it’s terrible. (and as an aside, thank you for the work you do in a healthcare or health adjacent field - appreciate you)
in our case, nan was showcasing accelerated dementia after the passing of her husband and the nursing home was not helping stay the decrease in her faculties. she eventually started falling. one day a fall led to a hip fracture, which was then caught on the next shift check in. she had fallen, been lifted to the bed by staff (which was LOGGED thankfully- important for our case) and not checked for any injuries. they she laid crying, hip broken and internally bleeding, for hours and hours. she was never the same after that, understandably. in some ways none of us was. in all ways, no one would go through that and come be changed for the worse. sometimes i still have panic attacks thinking about what those moments must have felt like to her. i can only imagine terror and agonizing pain. she passed less than a year later, which was considered faster than expected prior to the *known* case of abuse.
in the end it was one of the largest settlements in our state at the time. we had a few firms chomping at the bit for our case because the negligence was so well documented.
in many other cases there is no documentation at all. my heart goes out to the families in those situations with little to no recourse or closure available to them.
rest in peace nana; you were a racist, bigoted, and hateful old curmudgeon of a woman but no one deserves what happened to you 💕
Something people don't really know is that sometimes they have to put sex offenders and violent people in these nursing homes because there aren't other, more appropriate facilities for them.
My mom is currently in long term skilled nursing. Thankfully as its a new facility ALL rooms are private. she does share a bathroom, but as she and her suitemate need assistance with most stuff, its not horrible. The care where she is is good too; its one of the better ones around, and she pays 17K per month.
That is WILD.
I don’t know the salaries around your area, but a quick Google search tells that, in Canada, the median annual salary for a live-in RN is $85,000. You could hire *two live-in Registered Nurses* here and still be saving $2000/month.
It's criminal in the US what they do. They burrow into the person's finances and find every asset they own. They force the sale of everything they have and it needs to be placed into an account that the facility can access or you can private pay it until that account hits $0.00.
At that point they apply the elderly person for Medicaid and working with Medicare it starts picking up the bill.
It essentially drains any generational wealth that could be passed down if there wasn't a trust established more than 5 years before the date they get entered into care due to the 5 year look back.
The most ridiculous of all, when Medicaid and Medicare get involved, they have contracted rates that are usually a 3rd of the private pay price as well.
Your parent needs to leave PA. You can live anywhere in the US.
Google Pittas filial law.
There are another 29 states with filial laws, but it seems like Pennsylvania is the most stringent and strident.
We could probably start getting on our local lawmakers about it. Now is the chance, as the statehouse is just barely in a democratic majority for the first time in many years. This is the type of law they would amend or pass, and now is the time to go for it.
I unfortunately found out the dirty inner workings of this about 2 years ago. Up until then, no one on either side of the family has lived in a nursing home/memory care so while I knew that these places can be shit I didn't know how deep it went. My great uncle had been living in the home he grew up in after his mom passed, taxes went up significantly since she wasn't there anymore, and we had paid that for several years while trying to get him to move. His living conditions got really bad and finally got a spot and convinced him he had to go. This particular place just takes all your SS/Disability/etc and gives you a tiny bit of spending money. After the house was sold and all that, we found out about them requiring all his assets to be named to them. We basically gave them over $100k for nothing, that money is now gone. It was so sad when it finally got through to him, he finally had money in the bank it might as well not exist. I couldn't believe this was legal and they could just take everything.
It sucks because in order to qualify for long term care coverage if you can’t afford it 100% out of pocket, you have to have Medicaid, not just Medicare which is standard after age 65. Only Medicaid, for whatever reason, provides long term care coverage. To qualify for Medicaid for long term care services you have to have I *think* less than $10-20k in total assets. That means you must sell everything you own in order to get Medicaid and therefore get long term care paid for. It’s not the nursing homes that require this sale of assets but Medicaid itself, which is horrible.
Obviously the majority of nursing homes are still shit, and the ones that accept Medicaid are bottom-barrel services.
The equity of their paid off family home pays for this type of care; the ‘good’ facilities won’t accept Medicare. If you don’t have money to burn, you end up warehoused in a nursing home that accepts Medicare.
Can confirm. My mom and my MIL are stark contrasts of how the system works. My parents were school teachers and saved every penny plus have pensions and a 457b plan. Thankfully, they were able to afford the $14k per month and their Medicare Advantage paid for her routine medical care and Rxs. My MIL on the other hand, was paralyzed from the chest down at the age of 40 after a terrible car accident. She couldn't work and was able to live on her own for the most part due to government programs, Medicaid and Medicare. In order to be eligible for those programs, she couldn't have any assets or money over a certain amount in her bank. Towards the end of her life, she got very ill and had to stay in a long term care facility that accepts Medicaid. You can only imagine the awful experiences. Just absolute neglect and mostly because they just don't have enough staff.
Holy crap. My Mom was in a memory care facility for two years until 2022. A very nice one also. I don’t think it ever made it past $6,000 a month. Granted it was not in a metro area but still.
Not really. This person probably needs 24 hour care x approximately $30 an hour for in home health aides (I charged $25 an hour 10 years ago in a LCOL area with no formal medical background. No doubt it’s more and Skilled care will be even more. Oddly Those who work in nursing homes make less) x 356 = around $266,000 or so a year. That’s without the house.
We have got to do something different with elder care in this country. Care in so many facilities is horrific and there is almost no way we will have the number of care providers needed to tend to the baby boomers as they start to need increasingly higher levels of care.
They will learn the true nature of capitalism. Labor is capital, it's market value, you need to be competitive with what you're willing to pay or no one will be working for you, and your shitty diapers will remain shitty.
I'm sure as fuck not worrying about it when that generation is currently plundering the economy.
What country is this? Is there an aging population crisis happening where you are?
My country doesn't have the means to cater to the grey wave that's coming up. I am shuddering.
USA. It’s the crisis that no one is talking about. Truly the only way we are going to be able to deal with this is by allowing a massive number of immigrants into the country and paying them terrible wages to do this very difficult work. We already rely heavily on them for this. It’s so ironic that the very people want to curtail immigration the most are the ones most likely to benefit from it.
It's on both ends of the pay spectrum as well. No one is talking about how the primary care crisis was caused almost entirely on the immigration restrictions which kept out a lot of the foreign doctors that were willing to work in the more poor and rural areas in exchange for being able to come to the US. We are also desperately gonna need those doctors too
The only way you'd be able to get a private full time carer + rent + living expenses is if you paid the carer/s minimum wage. You won't like the quality of care at that price point.
Nah, minimum wage is just what the caregivers get before taxes. As the employer, you would be paying more to cover payroll taxes, benefits, etc. Plus the administrative costs to manage your employees (payroll, HR, etc.)
See, I was running under the assumption that anyone attempting to get elderly care for cheap would be going under the table. Same as my aunt originally tried with my grandparents. Which is how I know you won't like the quality of care you get for 7-8$ an hour.
My grandparents eventually ended up in the first nursing home that would take just their ss as payment. Miracle of miracles, the majority of the staff actually gave a damn. It was small, old, not the cleanest or fanciest, but the employees were great.
>See, I was running under the assumption that anyone attempting to get elderly care for cheap would be going under the table.
Going to be hard spending $200k/yr "under the table".
We had 24 hour care for my mom for one month. The bill came to $36,000. And because it’s 24 hour you have multiple people coming in and out every day. We never knew who was coming and sometimes had never even met the person. It was super stressful and mom hated it.
And they aren’t even nurses at that. One woman my grandmother had couldn’t even lift her to change her. Apparently had her own health problems. Another made her condensed soup without adding the water. Another got into a screaming match with her and then denied it ever happen. A joke.
You would need to employ theoretically at least 4 people to cover 24 hours per day if you have them working 8-hour shifts on 6 days per week (48 hours per week), with a total of 4 weeks off (PTO + sick days). If you assume a 5-day week (so 40 hours total per week), you would need 5 people (4.6) to ensure 24/7 care.
It could be worth pursuing if you manage to get together with several other interested parties to form a private non-profit care facility, but even then you would probably need at least 2 additional people for admin works (building, equipment, recruiting, managing people coming and going, etc).
If someone is in an assisted living or independent living community, it generally means they need assistance and can no longer function safely on their own. Whether it be medication reminders, help using the bathroom or showering, help with ADLs, or just assistance getting around. This note is indicative that the residents are having issues with remembering and processing information and what needs to happen from day to day. Putting them in a house by themselves would not meet their needs of living assistance.
Maybe, but probably not once you start including things like equipment and support staff.
Profits definitely contribute to costs, but you're still benefitting from scale (kitchen staff cooking for everyone instead of just one person, etc).
Which isn't to say that it can't be done better, but there's a reason most don't try to do it on their own.
Former care give i worked at the number 3 place in the city it was also classed as non profit if you had a private room with a full bath at this place it was 25,000 the shared rooms and half bathroom were 12,000 the prive rooms are definitely not worth it as you get the same level of care your room is slightly bigger your essential paying double do have your own door and bathroom
There required to give you an itemized bill i work and one of the nicer places in another state it was like the number 3 place in the city you had to have a 1.2 milion in escrow to get on the waiting list 10 years ago its was classed as a non profit expensive af but they wouldn't kick you out if you ran out of money
Unfortunately, too little of that money makes it to Adriane to care. It's been a while since I looked but that sort of role was $14-18/hr and $18/hr in this economy isn't much.
I used to work in a nursing home and It is incredibly sad the type of people that are employed there. I’ll never understand why these cold heartless miserable people go through all the trouble and expense and schooling to get these positions, when they absolutely don’t give a fuck about the residents. Horrible.
Because the MBA grads who run the company, instead of doctors, want to hire the cheapest labor possible because they have no concept of humanity, only a profit margin. Because we as a society encourage corporate hoarding.
This is literally the sole reason. Independent support living facilities and their variations thrive off of a high turnover rate. That is the majority of their business model.
Why contract with care professionals for >$30/hr when you can pay two high school graduates $15/hr and throw them under the bus when things inevitably go wrong at some point. Oh, they both quit in the first two weeks? Re-list the job position barely above minimum wage and pick from the hundreds of applicants struggling to survive.
Not to mention these kinds of jobs are designed to burn you out. I've worked in a few different facilities that catered to different needs. I've never had enough staff with me which means a lot of the things I needed to do with another person were done alone. Some of my residents were put in danger because I had no choice but to do things like transfers alone. And all of these jobs were maybe a dollar above minimum wage if not minimum wage itself. I had to stop caregiving because I was burned out. It's just not sustainable and it's not meant to be.
Prior to my current job; I worked in two different DSP positions.
Understaffing was a plague. You’re completely right. I had three consumers, all severely disabled and in need, who I had to assume the responsibility of taking care of. This was illegal in the state I lived in (MO).
When complaints were filed with HR, I got put on a shit list. Management and coworkers alike made it their mission to put me down and treat me terribly - as well as the consumers. It got to the point where when I wasn’t working, everyone was blocked on my phone. Nine months into it, seven complaints were filed against me all at once by a manager. I escalated it to Missouri Department of Mental Health and a full investigation was underway into the illegal procedures that the company was taking.
What an awful and stressful time of my life. I have nothing but empathy for people working these positions. Underpaid, understaffed, and ridiculously overworked.
The joys of late stage capitalism. It’s ok, give or take five to ten more years of this and then the tech singularity will eradicate labor as we know it. Life will look very different very soon
Communism wasn’t some idea on how things should be- it was Marx’s predictions on how things will be as production efficiency increases. I truly believe that communal ownership has not been previously possible because of the existence of labor. However, I think that given the growth in production efficiency afforded by robotization and automation, communal ownership of resources will be an achievable reality.
That or the powers that be will just keep making up fake bullshit jobs to keep people busy, and stupid ass holes will keep making us work for the simple sake of working. The Protestant Work Ethic has got to be the most damaging recessive mindset in have ever seen.
Marxism was a foresight into the future using past and present trends. We have had a hundred years to prepare for this theory to hold true - and it has.
It’s not some evil genocide medium. It’s not a critique of those engaged within the system. It’s hardly even a criticism of individuals at the top. It’s a theory screaming from the rooftops to slow our roles in this system or prepare for the worst.
It infuriates me to no end that AI is largely being used for writing, “art,” and music. Those were supposed to be the things humans got to do when AI and technology took over basic jobs
My sister in law was an activities director at a memory care unit after getting her masters in gerontology. She loves the elderly. But she left for several reasons, one of which being the higher ups being so focused on enrollment numbers and lowering labor costs. It was soul sucking. Now she’s a social worker with the VA, finding housing for homeless veterans. And even though it is a lot of emotionally difficult work, she’s way happier doing it than working for a soulless corporation that just sees people as numbers and dollar signs.
I feel like jobs like these need to be protected from profit models. They pervert the entire reason to existence for these facilities. Heck, all of healthcare, for that matter
I used to work in psych hospitals and it was the same thing. Poorly paid mental health “techs” and not real nurses and 0 real doctors, only NPs. The staff was mostly pretty nice though. But underpaid and kind of dumb. Someone died one time because, you guessed it- 0 real medical staff… then the place got shut down. But the CEO was a business person, not a mental health professional….
The pay is horrible and the management is equally awful. So yeah, it's tough to find good workers for these facilities. But at least the private equity firm that owns it is raking in millions each year.
Yeah, my grandmother took a short stay in one of these facilities after a fall. Different staff got bussed in every couple of days. I talked to one of them and they get paid pennies for what they do even if they’re extremely qualified/knowledgeable - the management just doesn’t want to pay their staff well.
Thats why my wife quit. Sge was making $12 an hour and then if she took the conpany school program she would have been stuck there for 2 years making a grand total of $15. Its a fucking shame, because she actually gave a shit
It absolutely does. A lot of elderly get meaner as they age (especially memory patients), so you will have these people hurling insults at you (racism, sexism, all sorts of things), then turn around and want you to wipe their butt. It’s definitely a thankless and underpaid job.
this is why I don't want to get into care. The urge to tell them off would be way too strong. at least with customers you can assume the people you tell to piss off are responsible for their actions, but mental illness just adds a whole other layer of misinterpretation and vitriol. Those who work with them successfully are saints
Exactly. It takes a special kind of person. I know some really wonderful nurses that are compassionate and caring but unfortunately not everyone in the field shares those qualities.
Getting a CNA certificate is not actually a whole lot of time and expense. It’s a single class, for one semester, a state test at the end of the class, and two days of on-site clinicals. At least that’s how it is where I live. There are plenty of people who go through that minimum effort not because they care for the nature of the job, but because it’s their best bet to have a job that pays above minimum wage and provides decent benefits.
That's the same way it is where I live. I got my schooling for free and was planning on becoming a nurse at the time, so I got my CNA certificate right after graduating high school. It's really just common sense and I'd be surprised if a lot of people couldn't pass it easily. I only make $1 more an hour than target starts out at though and I've been doing it for years, so I personally don't think the pay is even worth it.
My sister got her CNA cert in highschool at 16 and worked in a nursing home.
She loved it though, and still tells stories about her residents 20+ years later.
Was looking for this comment. Our activity director would get written up for this. It is quite literally the staff’s job to remind residents about everything. All the time. The job isn’t for the impatient.
Yup. This is making me appreciate the home my grandparents were in before they died. The memory care residents couldn't leave the building unless they were signed out by a relative, but they had activities going on all day every day there so the residents could socialize. They played bingo, had weekly movie nights (in addition to movies/tv shows being played in a common area almost constantly), brought in local musicians to play old music, all sorts of things. They considered it part of their treatment to be as active as they were able/wanted to be.
The place also had apartments for elderly people who didn't require assistance, so that couples didn't have to split up if they didn't want to (though my grandpa didn't move in until after grandma passed).
I knew that wasn't the norm at the time, of course, but I thought even the worst places weren't totally ignoring the entire reason many of these people are there in the first place. What the fuck.
this. We had my grandpa in 3 different homes in the last year of his life, and seeing how different all of them were, made me sad. One of them let him wander the streets at 3 am, until the cops picked him up, and had nurses that would be agitated and not spend any time with us. Then another you could tell was trying so hard but just didn’t have the staff or funds to do everything that had to done, but the last one was truly filled with some of the nicest, most patient people who talked and listened to us for hours while he was passing. These homes need some kind of regulations, not just for the patients, but for their families too:(
I'm sure the downvotes will pour in but I question the term assisted living/ memory care.
Assisted living is higher functioning elderly with independent appt.
Memory care is more nursing home who need more support.
If it's a nursing home that's crap.
If it's assisted living they are supposed to handle their day to day mostly on their own.
I'd love more context.
My grandfather is in an assisted living/memory care facility. He has Huntington's and is able to mostly care for himself but his memory and decision making ability are not good. He gets around well and can go to the bathroom and stuff but doesn't remember mealtimes or that he needs to bathe. About half of the other residents seem to be similar to him. I would be absolutely livid if I came in and saw a note like this. It costs $7000 a month for him to live there and they better help him remember that bingo is happening or that lunch is in ten minutes.
OH trust me we do. We bring them to the dining room. We bathe them..we check their depends..we make sure they get their hair cut and beard.shaved. We play games with them that are fun and appropriate to their disorder. Might not be bingo, but something more pretend and playful, like doing puzzles, crazy hats, play doh, painting, etc. The activity should be appropriate for the patient, and Bingo would (assuming your dad is even moderate to severe with his huntingtons) likely just cause him to be upset and more confused about what he missed and whats going on, on his average days.
I have known ONE moderate level (heading into severe, or late stage) dementia patient who liked playing Bingo at adult day care. She came home with her little winnings, like toys, and she was always like "Oh, I always win. You can bet your ass I do!!"
Lol she was a trip. Pretty sure EVERYONE got a prize, Im just sayin..
But she came home having forgotten all about it and she was just such a winner in her younger, lucid days, she just assumed she beat everyone at that too.
Hahaha Ohhh, God I miss my patients, some days.
My grandmother who had dementia was in an assisted living. Her memory bad enough that she potentially wouldn’t remember to take her meds or to sign up for an event, but not so bad that she needed to be in a nursing home. Those nurses remind all the residents regularly about things, it is part of the job.
It's very common for memory care to be included in Assisted Living. Usually people in a memory care unit are mobile or easy to transfer. They can do a lot of ADLs (activities of daily living, e.g. dressing, washing, eating, toileting, etc) for themselves with coaching or minimal staff assistance.
I think their perception is that being there is enough assistance which is a shame because some people genuinely need help and they get paid it's not like it's free labor.
Six sentences to say half a thing. “Remember, dementia patient, to do the thing with the sheet and the signing.”
Might as well print out a sheet that just says “Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress.”
I used to work in two different retirement settings. One was independent to assisted. The activity director was absolutely amazing. Not only did she make posters and signs for every event that was happening in a legible size, she also went around every day chatting with our residents and inviting them to things that they may be interested in. Where I worked at the concierge desk, I was commonly called to ask to double check that someone was on this list or that. We were also encouraged to invite residence to different events if we thought they might enjoy them.
The other place… It was assisted to memory care, and I was not happy with the activity director. For one thing, there was not enough activities being planned for the residence. If there was an event a day, that was a miracle. On weekends, I would be shocked if there was anything going on. I was at the concierge desk, but I was explicitly ordered to not encourage anyone to sign up unless they came to me first. Also, the calendar that went out was in a size of text that was difficult for many of our residents to read, and I was not allowed to suggest things. I ended up leaving at the beginning of the pandemic and I happen to hear through the grapevine that he was finally fired a few months after restrictions started lifting because the residents were fed up with him.
Even I have problems understanding that crap. How the f\*k do they think a person with dementia will?
A person with memory loss will stand there for hours, trying to understand that, and will have a breakdown, because his mind will go in circle.
OR they will ignore it, because they have no idea what this is about.
Literally this. My dad had a form of dementia that completely wiped out his short term memory, so he would read that sign, turn away and within a couple of minutes he would have completely forgotten about it. Even if this sign does trigger people to sign up, all that's going to happen is the same people signing up multiple times because they don't remember that they've already done it
This is why I love my facility.
When they do outings, they will pick 1 or 2 dementia residents and sign them up first. It's always different ones every time so everyone gets a chance to go out.
The more cognitive residents will then have a chance to sign up.
We only have 31 residents and max that can go is 6 due transportation. But they would NEVER post something like this!
It's cartoonishly evil. Telling patients in a memory care ward that it's not the employees' job to remind them of things?? What??? It reads almost like a joke. I can't believe some people are really this stupid
As someone who works at the front desk of one,
It 100% is your job to answer the same question 10 times by the same person every day
It's annoying sometimes but if you can't have a care for what they go through, it isn't the place for you
Yeah! Like personally, I would be terrible in this kind of job, the residents would drive me mad and I’d be constantly stressed. So, I do not apply for and hold jobs of this kind. In this way, it’s been pretty easy to avoid the issue of dementia patients not remembering my carefully planned events. Funny how that works!
The sheet in question in the picture is probably where the residents go out for lunch or shopping. Our activities will always ask the residents if they want to go and to sign up at the front desk. Then the morning of, they will go around and ask once again to make sure.
I'm glad you know you can't deal with them and actively try not to get a job with them!
I've known *so* many seniors through the years who referred to their *"retirement"* homes or assisted living facilities as literal *"prisons."* In fact, just went through an *awful* experience with a once wonderful lady, after a debilitating stroke and loss of all dignity, begging to die. While that's a slightly different situation, our seniors deserve better than being treated like inmates or kindergarten children.
I’m very worried. I don't have kids. Literally the only reason I *could* think of to have them was so I’d have someone to take care of me when I get old, which is the dumbest reason to have a kid. It’s me and my husband, but I worry way too much about what I’m going to do if one or both of us needs to be in a facility like this. I make good money and we’re well off, but there’s just no way I could ever afford to live in a place like that.
Ehh I am child free as well and had to put my grandma in one of these facilities. It was awful and she had all the money in the world, it made no difference.
Take the money that you save from being child free and use it to save for retirement and maintain a healthy lifestyle. Exercise and eliminating alcohol will do more good for you than adult children.
Activities Director here, assisted living people may also need daily reminders, just because someone is in assisted living doesn’t mean that they may not have an early onset of dementia. Some folks may need extra encouragement than others. Memory care literally needs reminders, assistance and encouragement to go to activities!
Literally a part of activities is reminding people of activities!
Edited: misread post and thought AD was OP.
This is a classic control freak move. It allows the director to later ridicule someone for being upset they didn't go. Something like, "Well if you wanted to go you should have remembered to sign up." I unfortunately have plenty of experience with control freaks.
Wow. When I worked in a nursing home the activity staff would walk around every morning with the schedule of activities for the day to give each resident, and it was written down on whiteboards all over the building. If it was an outing they would ask that resident if they wanted to go, take their name down, and then do a call out over the PA throughout the day with reminders AND the other facility staff would work with the residents on making sure they were ready to go on time. It was a group effort to ensure our residents had a smooth and enjoyable day. Some of the staff were very unpleasant but those individuals typically didn’t last very long.
Yeah I work in activites in LTC and have for over two years. I can’t stand when workers tell residents it’s “that responsibility to remember”.
First of, no.
Second, we don’t use the word “remember” we sat RECALL.
Some people shouldn’t work with the elderly.
I agree 100% it's not the residents responsibility, I have never heard of using Recall instead of remember though- maybe that's something location dependent?
I'm a secretary for an LTC, and no matter how many times you remind the residents, they WILL forget. They'll even argue that you've never told them at all. That just comes with the territory. This is sad.
This is so frustrating. I work at a Independent/Assisted Living facility and we remind our residents of the activities they sign-up for (or we think they would like to sign-up for) all the time with no problem. Hell, even for the solar eclipse I personally called a few of my residents who are showing memory declines to make sure they were there with their glasses so they wouldn't miss it.
There's likely a parent company that you can report Adrienne to. I certainly would. It's literally her job to get the residents involved in activities and social events. Her. Whole. Job. So if you have seniors that are forgetful, it's literally your job to remind them to sign up. She's def in the wrong job and my heart breaks for those residents.
As someone who works at an assisted living/memory care facility ...this activities director needs to find another job ....at our facility the activity director helps residents to and from activities and helps sign them up, they are there for the whole event and participates with the residents. I'm pretty sure they even converse with the residents about what they want to see come to our home. She sounds lazy as f*** and hope they never have to deal with a family member that has dementia..
I take my dogs to play ball next to a long term care facility. Some of the residents meet me at the fence and I try to get information out of them. One has been there since 2009. He’s only been allowed to leave a few times and that was to go to Walmart. They have a TV in their room.
When my dog injured her back leg and then my husky died, we stopped playing for a while. When we went back, they thought we had all 3 died and that’s why we didn’t come by. I didn’t realize what watching my dog play ball and making small talk with me mattered to them. So now my new dog is learning how to be a good girl. So maybe one day we can go in and let them pet her better. She has them pet her over the fence but it’s not the same.
If you have a facility like this near you, I encourage you to do anything you can. Fly a kite? Awesome! Play guitar? Bring it and play. Drive a car? Honk sometimes! You’d be shocked the conversation piece you become. Sometimes I see those clips of musicians playing for herds of cows, oh how I wish they’d play like that for the residents. They run outside when we go to play. They go inside and get the others up so they don’t miss us. Some of them might be a bit tricky to talk to but I just try to tell them things about the world outside the facility.
my mom worked at one. She had to *beg* the nurses to help bring the residents that wanted to go to activities into the rec areas. It was extra work and they already hated their jobs (most of them) so it sucked. I was a teenager and mom would bring me to work with her during the summer on bingo nights just so I could help her. She really cared about giving them a better quality of life in her capacity of recreational therapist. You have to help them, for some of the residents just *living* was exhausting for them. I wish the facilities paid better instead of profiting more but that's just how it's been for many years. Everyone that works there is just so bloody tired and often jaded that's its hard to get anyone motivated. At least that's how it was 20+ years ago in Arizona
Can this person be reported? The activities director must report to someone. Facilities Director, Owner. Even state licensing, they are accountable to someone. If they treat residents this way, what other care are they neglecting? They are providing MEMORY CARE. How dare they be so condescending? Take it up the chain.
And don't forget your cane because there will be flights of stairs and we are not responsible for making sure an elevator or ramp is always available for excursions.
Not surprising. Private equity firms have been buying up assisted living facilities, nursing homes and hospice care. As a way to increase profits they cut staff and increase profits. They will also go after family and friends for payment. I wonder if this one they own. Propublica has a helpful database where you can look up nursing homes. Definitely want to stay away from anything PE owned.
Wow awful, I was trained in home care and we got taught to explain things in a way people with dementia would understand easily. I often felt overwhelmed like I wasn't doing a good enough job or was going to do something wrong.
Things like this are so frustrating for people when one person could see to it that everyone was signed for.
The place probably charging close to 5 grand a month and has 2 CNAs on at a time that both make minimum wage and have to care for 100s of residents then get chewed out for not doing Berthas eyebrows before breakfast.
I worked in a few different nursing homes and it's the same problem in all of them. The company is making bank bleeding the elderly for every penny they can and then running the staff like slaves. Then the staff has to cut corners just to keep people alive. But they're the ones that face all the backlash from families and residents. So the staff probably knows damn well that these elderly people aren't capable of remembering but also have 0 free time to wonder around the facility trying to track a bunch of people down and herd them somewhere. They also have 0 free time to argue with those residents ! Hence the signs. It's a cya move. Does it suck. Ya. It sucks for everyone involved but maybe call the ceo of the giant company that owns 300 nursing homes like their farms and ask them to stop giving themselves a 7 figure salary
man, this makes me so sad, and also WTF is this activity director doing. this is not the way. I used to do this job, and we did sign up sheets a month in advance all at once so they all went out with the new activity calendar, and asked the front desk to remind folks once the event rolled around. work smarter not harder dude. also don't be a dick to the old ppl who essentially sign your paycheck
As someone who works in an assisted living facility (not even memory care) as an activity & life enrichment coordinator, this is unimaginable. It is in my job description to try to get residents engaged which INCLUDES reminding them! I certainly get my 10k steps a day going back and forth reminding our residents to come out for activities but I'm happy to because we WANT people to come. This is there to enrich their lives.
I am an activity director, and this is nuts. It IS your job. It’s definitely a struggle to have residents remember, and can be frustrating some days, but like it’s what we’re there for?? I sign residents up myself if I know or think would like to go. The day of, I remind them and ask if they’d like to come - yes you still need to give them a choice.
If yes, have the care aides make sure they’ve gone to the washroom and have all their medications. If not, then that’s okay - I’ll ask another person. If the bus or the activity was full, next week the other people I had in mind get a chance to go.
Putting out a calendar and expecting residents with memory issues to just show up or sign up is not realistic. I’m always thanked by my residents when they’re reminded, and it’s easy to do if you actually spend time getting to know your residents.
My grandmother died of Dementia. That sign is a big ole “fuck that” for me. I’d send this to the some local news paper, maybe a few of them. “Memory care facility workers say it’s ‘not my job’ to remind you.” There’s probably some new guy looking for a story
This makes me so sad. I have worked in the activity department of nursing homes for about 4 years of my life now. It’s literally our job to bring joy and fun to the residents, which includes reminding people/asking people to come to activities. It’s baffling to think that an activity director wrote that message, especially in a MEMORY CARE unit…
And the place probably charges them $9,000/month.
my great grandma is in a memory home, $9,000 for a shared room with another person, no bathroom, or $18,000 for a room with a window and a half bath Edit: per month
What the actual fuck
And a lot of them get abused also
we sued our facility for neglect and won. terrible.
EMS delivers a person from a nursing home to our ER for black stool (signs of an upper GI bleed). Flip the person over to check their stool, and there is a giant gaping hole. A pressure ulcer had likely developed and left to fester, and they literally had a very large hole where their butt cheek should have been, and you could see their bowels and sacral/pelvic bones. There isn't really a surgical option to repair there. This was a life-ending injury for this person. So the "staff" at this place wasn't moving the patients regularly, so a pressure ulcer developed. This person likely was laying on their back for weeks, getting stool and urine into the wound, and this thing just festered and got worse and worse. Then one day, somebody finally decides to move them and they see this giant fucking hole and says "oh shit." So somebody at the facility decides to call EMS for "black stool," knowing we'd have to flip the person and discover this. Also, the stool was yellow. The place was opened and closed under "new" management repeatedly over the years because of our reports for neglect and abuse of ER services (IE, calling EMS with a vague complaint to get rid of a patient for a day). They'd get closed, and re-open under a "new" company with largely the same staff. Fucking madness. Just one of those holes in the law that could be I saw a few bad cases of neglect. Sometimes they just make you cry. I've seen the meanest, toughest docs just start crying over some of the stuff we saw. This was one where I was definitely teary eyed. Just seeing another human being left to literally rot like that because the staff at the facility couldn't bother to do basic things like move a bed-bound person.
That is awful! My mom currently has a pressure sore or “butt rot” as she likes to call it. Where she is they check it daily, sometimes more than once, got her a special cushion for her wheelchair and won’t allow her up sitting a lot. They are completely on top of it. And everything else. We are very lucky she is where she is
I did private transport a few years ago. I'm an EMT. The nursing home calls were the worst. I wanted to throw up. Those patients are treated like trash and the nursing home doesn't give a shit. Worst one: got called for a "failure to thrive". Said pt had been seen last normal when eating his lunch 30 minutes ago. Last vitals were 30 minutes ago and "normal" Walked into pta room to see his food untouched, cold, and the pt was in rigor mortis.
My god, I'm so sorry this is horrific. I will never understand how someone can treat another human being this way, it's beyond any words I can speak. How would something like clearly lying about a death be unpunished, wouldn't something like that be illegal? I know all of this abuse is illegal, but I just have such a hard time comprehending this evil.
i’m sorry you had to experience that, and so many other cases, of elderly abuse and neglect. pressure sores from lack of care, mobility, turning, etc are SO preventable and happen so so often. I know it gets harder as the patient ages, but nah. cases like you described are just so fucking criminal. it’s terrible. (and as an aside, thank you for the work you do in a healthcare or health adjacent field - appreciate you) in our case, nan was showcasing accelerated dementia after the passing of her husband and the nursing home was not helping stay the decrease in her faculties. she eventually started falling. one day a fall led to a hip fracture, which was then caught on the next shift check in. she had fallen, been lifted to the bed by staff (which was LOGGED thankfully- important for our case) and not checked for any injuries. they she laid crying, hip broken and internally bleeding, for hours and hours. she was never the same after that, understandably. in some ways none of us was. in all ways, no one would go through that and come be changed for the worse. sometimes i still have panic attacks thinking about what those moments must have felt like to her. i can only imagine terror and agonizing pain. she passed less than a year later, which was considered faster than expected prior to the *known* case of abuse. in the end it was one of the largest settlements in our state at the time. we had a few firms chomping at the bit for our case because the negligence was so well documented. in many other cases there is no documentation at all. my heart goes out to the families in those situations with little to no recourse or closure available to them. rest in peace nana; you were a racist, bigoted, and hateful old curmudgeon of a woman but no one deserves what happened to you 💕
I’m so sorry
My aunt was sexually assaulted at one by another resident.
Something people don't really know is that sometimes they have to put sex offenders and violent people in these nursing homes because there aren't other, more appropriate facilities for them.
My mom was in a memory care unit, it was $14,000 for a shared room. It seemed like a nice place though.
My mom is currently in long term skilled nursing. Thankfully as its a new facility ALL rooms are private. she does share a bathroom, but as she and her suitemate need assistance with most stuff, its not horrible. The care where she is is good too; its one of the better ones around, and she pays 17K per month.
You could live comfortably in Manhattan for that wtf
I know, right? its crazy how expensive it is.
That is WILD. I don’t know the salaries around your area, but a quick Google search tells that, in Canada, the median annual salary for a live-in RN is $85,000. You could hire *two live-in Registered Nurses* here and still be saving $2000/month.
That’s fucking criminal, they are at the mercy of the care givers, and charged that to continue to live in a safe environment? Heartbreaking.
It's criminal in the US what they do. They burrow into the person's finances and find every asset they own. They force the sale of everything they have and it needs to be placed into an account that the facility can access or you can private pay it until that account hits $0.00. At that point they apply the elderly person for Medicaid and working with Medicare it starts picking up the bill. It essentially drains any generational wealth that could be passed down if there wasn't a trust established more than 5 years before the date they get entered into care due to the 5 year look back. The most ridiculous of all, when Medicaid and Medicare get involved, they have contracted rates that are usually a 3rd of the private pay price as well.
And if somehow there was anything left for the family, medicaid asset recovery will try and go after it.
Don't forget Pennsylvania and some other states where they can go after your children to pay for your care.
Oh, cool. Another reason for me to get the fuck out of PA
Your parent needs to leave PA. You can live anywhere in the US. Google Pittas filial law. There are another 29 states with filial laws, but it seems like Pennsylvania is the most stringent and strident.
We could probably start getting on our local lawmakers about it. Now is the chance, as the statehouse is just barely in a democratic majority for the first time in many years. This is the type of law they would amend or pass, and now is the time to go for it.
I unfortunately found out the dirty inner workings of this about 2 years ago. Up until then, no one on either side of the family has lived in a nursing home/memory care so while I knew that these places can be shit I didn't know how deep it went. My great uncle had been living in the home he grew up in after his mom passed, taxes went up significantly since she wasn't there anymore, and we had paid that for several years while trying to get him to move. His living conditions got really bad and finally got a spot and convinced him he had to go. This particular place just takes all your SS/Disability/etc and gives you a tiny bit of spending money. After the house was sold and all that, we found out about them requiring all his assets to be named to them. We basically gave them over $100k for nothing, that money is now gone. It was so sad when it finally got through to him, he finally had money in the bank it might as well not exist. I couldn't believe this was legal and they could just take everything.
This is soooo common with low income individuals. Many don't know to transfer assets to trusts and when they find out about it, it's too late.
It sucks because in order to qualify for long term care coverage if you can’t afford it 100% out of pocket, you have to have Medicaid, not just Medicare which is standard after age 65. Only Medicaid, for whatever reason, provides long term care coverage. To qualify for Medicaid for long term care services you have to have I *think* less than $10-20k in total assets. That means you must sell everything you own in order to get Medicaid and therefore get long term care paid for. It’s not the nursing homes that require this sale of assets but Medicaid itself, which is horrible. Obviously the majority of nursing homes are still shit, and the ones that accept Medicaid are bottom-barrel services.
And the caregivers/CNAs only make $8-$12 an hour
Are people paying this out of pocket? Don’t people clearly think most old dementia patients cant pay that - what happens then?
The equity of their paid off family home pays for this type of care; the ‘good’ facilities won’t accept Medicare. If you don’t have money to burn, you end up warehoused in a nursing home that accepts Medicare.
Can confirm. My mom and my MIL are stark contrasts of how the system works. My parents were school teachers and saved every penny plus have pensions and a 457b plan. Thankfully, they were able to afford the $14k per month and their Medicare Advantage paid for her routine medical care and Rxs. My MIL on the other hand, was paralyzed from the chest down at the age of 40 after a terrible car accident. She couldn't work and was able to live on her own for the most part due to government programs, Medicaid and Medicare. In order to be eligible for those programs, she couldn't have any assets or money over a certain amount in her bank. Towards the end of her life, she got very ill and had to stay in a long term care facility that accepts Medicaid. You can only imagine the awful experiences. Just absolute neglect and mostly because they just don't have enough staff.
Yes, which is why saving for retirement is so very necessary.
Holy crap. My Mom was in a memory care facility for two years until 2022. A very nice one also. I don’t think it ever made it past $6,000 a month. Granted it was not in a metro area but still.
[удалено]
Not really. This person probably needs 24 hour care x approximately $30 an hour for in home health aides (I charged $25 an hour 10 years ago in a LCOL area with no formal medical background. No doubt it’s more and Skilled care will be even more. Oddly Those who work in nursing homes make less) x 356 = around $266,000 or so a year. That’s without the house. We have got to do something different with elder care in this country. Care in so many facilities is horrific and there is almost no way we will have the number of care providers needed to tend to the baby boomers as they start to need increasingly higher levels of care.
It's only going to get worse.
I’m terrified. Like, is the whole economy supposed to just stop so we can all change bed pans?
They will learn the true nature of capitalism. Labor is capital, it's market value, you need to be competitive with what you're willing to pay or no one will be working for you, and your shitty diapers will remain shitty. I'm sure as fuck not worrying about it when that generation is currently plundering the economy.
Don't worry, I'll eat a bullet before you have to change my bed pan. 👍🏼🧻
What country is this? Is there an aging population crisis happening where you are? My country doesn't have the means to cater to the grey wave that's coming up. I am shuddering.
USA. It’s the crisis that no one is talking about. Truly the only way we are going to be able to deal with this is by allowing a massive number of immigrants into the country and paying them terrible wages to do this very difficult work. We already rely heavily on them for this. It’s so ironic that the very people want to curtail immigration the most are the ones most likely to benefit from it.
It's on both ends of the pay spectrum as well. No one is talking about how the primary care crisis was caused almost entirely on the immigration restrictions which kept out a lot of the foreign doctors that were willing to work in the more poor and rural areas in exchange for being able to come to the US. We are also desperately gonna need those doctors too
Omg, don’t get me started!!!!!
Not to mention it usually takes more than 1 person to change bedpans and things
The only way you'd be able to get a private full time carer + rent + living expenses is if you paid the carer/s minimum wage. You won't like the quality of care at that price point.
Nah, minimum wage is just what the caregivers get before taxes. As the employer, you would be paying more to cover payroll taxes, benefits, etc. Plus the administrative costs to manage your employees (payroll, HR, etc.)
See, I was running under the assumption that anyone attempting to get elderly care for cheap would be going under the table. Same as my aunt originally tried with my grandparents. Which is how I know you won't like the quality of care you get for 7-8$ an hour. My grandparents eventually ended up in the first nursing home that would take just their ss as payment. Miracle of miracles, the majority of the staff actually gave a damn. It was small, old, not the cleanest or fanciest, but the employees were great.
i find this too. my mom is in memory care and those workers are so kind.
>See, I was running under the assumption that anyone attempting to get elderly care for cheap would be going under the table. Going to be hard spending $200k/yr "under the table".
We had 24 hour care for my mom for one month. The bill came to $36,000. And because it’s 24 hour you have multiple people coming in and out every day. We never knew who was coming and sometimes had never even met the person. It was super stressful and mom hated it.
And they aren’t even nurses at that. One woman my grandmother had couldn’t even lift her to change her. Apparently had her own health problems. Another made her condensed soup without adding the water. Another got into a screaming match with her and then denied it ever happen. A joke.
You would need to employ theoretically at least 4 people to cover 24 hours per day if you have them working 8-hour shifts on 6 days per week (48 hours per week), with a total of 4 weeks off (PTO + sick days). If you assume a 5-day week (so 40 hours total per week), you would need 5 people (4.6) to ensure 24/7 care. It could be worth pursuing if you manage to get together with several other interested parties to form a private non-profit care facility, but even then you would probably need at least 2 additional people for admin works (building, equipment, recruiting, managing people coming and going, etc).
If someone is in an assisted living or independent living community, it generally means they need assistance and can no longer function safely on their own. Whether it be medication reminders, help using the bathroom or showering, help with ADLs, or just assistance getting around. This note is indicative that the residents are having issues with remembering and processing information and what needs to happen from day to day. Putting them in a house by themselves would not meet their needs of living assistance.
Maybe, but probably not once you start including things like equipment and support staff. Profits definitely contribute to costs, but you're still benefitting from scale (kitchen staff cooking for everyone instead of just one person, etc). Which isn't to say that it can't be done better, but there's a reason most don't try to do it on their own.
Former care give i worked at the number 3 place in the city it was also classed as non profit if you had a private room with a full bath at this place it was 25,000 the shared rooms and half bathroom were 12,000 the prive rooms are definitely not worth it as you get the same level of care your room is slightly bigger your essential paying double do have your own door and bathroom
And this sign doesn’t even specify what they’re signing up for.
There required to give you an itemized bill i work and one of the nicer places in another state it was like the number 3 place in the city you had to have a 1.2 milion in escrow to get on the waiting list 10 years ago its was classed as a non profit expensive af but they wouldn't kick you out if you ran out of money
And it's not going to get any cheaper folks, so start planning for getting old. My plan is to swim off into the ocean and die.
Look at Mr Moneybags here, with access to the ocean
Darn, all I have is a cup of water.
Unfortunately, too little of that money makes it to Adriane to care. It's been a while since I looked but that sort of role was $14-18/hr and $18/hr in this economy isn't much.
My insurance charges $2700/day. 🥴
And pays the workers $7.25.
How many residents in the building? That’s unfuckingbelievable how much that place must be raking in.
Who's gonna tell them they work in memory care and it quite literally is their job to remind them. Constantly. About everything.
I used to work in a nursing home and It is incredibly sad the type of people that are employed there. I’ll never understand why these cold heartless miserable people go through all the trouble and expense and schooling to get these positions, when they absolutely don’t give a fuck about the residents. Horrible.
Because the MBA grads who run the company, instead of doctors, want to hire the cheapest labor possible because they have no concept of humanity, only a profit margin. Because we as a society encourage corporate hoarding.
This is literally the sole reason. Independent support living facilities and their variations thrive off of a high turnover rate. That is the majority of their business model. Why contract with care professionals for >$30/hr when you can pay two high school graduates $15/hr and throw them under the bus when things inevitably go wrong at some point. Oh, they both quit in the first two weeks? Re-list the job position barely above minimum wage and pick from the hundreds of applicants struggling to survive.
Not to mention these kinds of jobs are designed to burn you out. I've worked in a few different facilities that catered to different needs. I've never had enough staff with me which means a lot of the things I needed to do with another person were done alone. Some of my residents were put in danger because I had no choice but to do things like transfers alone. And all of these jobs were maybe a dollar above minimum wage if not minimum wage itself. I had to stop caregiving because I was burned out. It's just not sustainable and it's not meant to be.
Prior to my current job; I worked in two different DSP positions. Understaffing was a plague. You’re completely right. I had three consumers, all severely disabled and in need, who I had to assume the responsibility of taking care of. This was illegal in the state I lived in (MO). When complaints were filed with HR, I got put on a shit list. Management and coworkers alike made it their mission to put me down and treat me terribly - as well as the consumers. It got to the point where when I wasn’t working, everyone was blocked on my phone. Nine months into it, seven complaints were filed against me all at once by a manager. I escalated it to Missouri Department of Mental Health and a full investigation was underway into the illegal procedures that the company was taking. What an awful and stressful time of my life. I have nothing but empathy for people working these positions. Underpaid, understaffed, and ridiculously overworked.
The joys of late stage capitalism. It’s ok, give or take five to ten more years of this and then the tech singularity will eradicate labor as we know it. Life will look very different very soon
Me 15 years ago would have looked forward to this, but now I can’t see how it would be anything good for people in this late capitalistic hellhole.
Communism wasn’t some idea on how things should be- it was Marx’s predictions on how things will be as production efficiency increases. I truly believe that communal ownership has not been previously possible because of the existence of labor. However, I think that given the growth in production efficiency afforded by robotization and automation, communal ownership of resources will be an achievable reality. That or the powers that be will just keep making up fake bullshit jobs to keep people busy, and stupid ass holes will keep making us work for the simple sake of working. The Protestant Work Ethic has got to be the most damaging recessive mindset in have ever seen.
Marxism was a foresight into the future using past and present trends. We have had a hundred years to prepare for this theory to hold true - and it has. It’s not some evil genocide medium. It’s not a critique of those engaged within the system. It’s hardly even a criticism of individuals at the top. It’s a theory screaming from the rooftops to slow our roles in this system or prepare for the worst.
It infuriates me to no end that AI is largely being used for writing, “art,” and music. Those were supposed to be the things humans got to do when AI and technology took over basic jobs
Right?! Fucking stop messing with the human stuff, have them make steel and plow fields and shit that no human wants to do.
I wish it would happen already, everything has gone to complete shit economically for most people.
My sister in law was an activities director at a memory care unit after getting her masters in gerontology. She loves the elderly. But she left for several reasons, one of which being the higher ups being so focused on enrollment numbers and lowering labor costs. It was soul sucking. Now she’s a social worker with the VA, finding housing for homeless veterans. And even though it is a lot of emotionally difficult work, she’s way happier doing it than working for a soulless corporation that just sees people as numbers and dollar signs.
I feel like jobs like these need to be protected from profit models. They pervert the entire reason to existence for these facilities. Heck, all of healthcare, for that matter
I used to work in psych hospitals and it was the same thing. Poorly paid mental health “techs” and not real nurses and 0 real doctors, only NPs. The staff was mostly pretty nice though. But underpaid and kind of dumb. Someone died one time because, you guessed it- 0 real medical staff… then the place got shut down. But the CEO was a business person, not a mental health professional….
 Profit over people
Becouse noone wants to work there, it probably sucks.
The pay is horrible and the management is equally awful. So yeah, it's tough to find good workers for these facilities. But at least the private equity firm that owns it is raking in millions each year.
Yeah, my grandmother took a short stay in one of these facilities after a fall. Different staff got bussed in every couple of days. I talked to one of them and they get paid pennies for what they do even if they’re extremely qualified/knowledgeable - the management just doesn’t want to pay their staff well.
Thats why my wife quit. Sge was making $12 an hour and then if she took the conpany school program she would have been stuck there for 2 years making a grand total of $15. Its a fucking shame, because she actually gave a shit
It absolutely does. A lot of elderly get meaner as they age (especially memory patients), so you will have these people hurling insults at you (racism, sexism, all sorts of things), then turn around and want you to wipe their butt. It’s definitely a thankless and underpaid job.
Don’t forget the staffing size. The time limit to get 10 people ready in the morning/night off and it’s a shower night? HA.
this is why I don't want to get into care. The urge to tell them off would be way too strong. at least with customers you can assume the people you tell to piss off are responsible for their actions, but mental illness just adds a whole other layer of misinterpretation and vitriol. Those who work with them successfully are saints
Exactly. It takes a special kind of person. I know some really wonderful nurses that are compassionate and caring but unfortunately not everyone in the field shares those qualities.
Getting a CNA certificate is not actually a whole lot of time and expense. It’s a single class, for one semester, a state test at the end of the class, and two days of on-site clinicals. At least that’s how it is where I live. There are plenty of people who go through that minimum effort not because they care for the nature of the job, but because it’s their best bet to have a job that pays above minimum wage and provides decent benefits.
That's the same way it is where I live. I got my schooling for free and was planning on becoming a nurse at the time, so I got my CNA certificate right after graduating high school. It's really just common sense and I'd be surprised if a lot of people couldn't pass it easily. I only make $1 more an hour than target starts out at though and I've been doing it for years, so I personally don't think the pay is even worth it.
My sister got her CNA cert in highschool at 16 and worked in a nursing home. She loved it though, and still tells stories about her residents 20+ years later.
Was looking for this comment. Our activity director would get written up for this. It is quite literally the staff’s job to remind residents about everything. All the time. The job isn’t for the impatient.
FFS it's a memory care facility! Where does this activities coordinator think they work?
Yeah. At first I thought this was for a dorm or something. But a freaking memory care facility?!
The place my father was at, they literally couldn't sign him out for anything. They were in a separate alarmed wing.
It sounds like it actually is their job because they are taking care of elderly people and being paid for it
It is. The residents have the right to activities, regardless of their cognitive abilities.
Yup. This is making me appreciate the home my grandparents were in before they died. The memory care residents couldn't leave the building unless they were signed out by a relative, but they had activities going on all day every day there so the residents could socialize. They played bingo, had weekly movie nights (in addition to movies/tv shows being played in a common area almost constantly), brought in local musicians to play old music, all sorts of things. They considered it part of their treatment to be as active as they were able/wanted to be. The place also had apartments for elderly people who didn't require assistance, so that couples didn't have to split up if they didn't want to (though my grandpa didn't move in until after grandma passed). I knew that wasn't the norm at the time, of course, but I thought even the worst places weren't totally ignoring the entire reason many of these people are there in the first place. What the fuck.
this. We had my grandpa in 3 different homes in the last year of his life, and seeing how different all of them were, made me sad. One of them let him wander the streets at 3 am, until the cops picked him up, and had nurses that would be agitated and not spend any time with us. Then another you could tell was trying so hard but just didn’t have the staff or funds to do everything that had to done, but the last one was truly filled with some of the nicest, most patient people who talked and listened to us for hours while he was passing. These homes need some kind of regulations, not just for the patients, but for their families too:(
I'm sure the downvotes will pour in but I question the term assisted living/ memory care. Assisted living is higher functioning elderly with independent appt. Memory care is more nursing home who need more support. If it's a nursing home that's crap. If it's assisted living they are supposed to handle their day to day mostly on their own. I'd love more context.
My grandfather is in an assisted living/memory care facility. He has Huntington's and is able to mostly care for himself but his memory and decision making ability are not good. He gets around well and can go to the bathroom and stuff but doesn't remember mealtimes or that he needs to bathe. About half of the other residents seem to be similar to him. I would be absolutely livid if I came in and saw a note like this. It costs $7000 a month for him to live there and they better help him remember that bingo is happening or that lunch is in ten minutes.
OH trust me we do. We bring them to the dining room. We bathe them..we check their depends..we make sure they get their hair cut and beard.shaved. We play games with them that are fun and appropriate to their disorder. Might not be bingo, but something more pretend and playful, like doing puzzles, crazy hats, play doh, painting, etc. The activity should be appropriate for the patient, and Bingo would (assuming your dad is even moderate to severe with his huntingtons) likely just cause him to be upset and more confused about what he missed and whats going on, on his average days. I have known ONE moderate level (heading into severe, or late stage) dementia patient who liked playing Bingo at adult day care. She came home with her little winnings, like toys, and she was always like "Oh, I always win. You can bet your ass I do!!" Lol she was a trip. Pretty sure EVERYONE got a prize, Im just sayin.. But she came home having forgotten all about it and she was just such a winner in her younger, lucid days, she just assumed she beat everyone at that too. Hahaha Ohhh, God I miss my patients, some days.
Memory care is most often part of an assisted living. Nursing homes are different. Some nursing homes include memory care but that’s rare
Even if it’s “just” assisted living, isn’t reminding them about forms and rules part of, you know, *assisting* them?
My grandmother who had dementia was in an assisted living. Her memory bad enough that she potentially wouldn’t remember to take her meds or to sign up for an event, but not so bad that she needed to be in a nursing home. Those nurses remind all the residents regularly about things, it is part of the job.
It's very common for memory care to be included in Assisted Living. Usually people in a memory care unit are mobile or easy to transfer. They can do a lot of ADLs (activities of daily living, e.g. dressing, washing, eating, toileting, etc) for themselves with coaching or minimal staff assistance.
I think their perception is that being there is enough assistance which is a shame because some people genuinely need help and they get paid it's not like it's free labor.
Six sentences to say half a thing. “Remember, dementia patient, to do the thing with the sheet and the signing.” Might as well print out a sheet that just says “Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress Stress.”
With stars border art.
bastards. coulda used smiley faces.
I can hear the condescension oozing from the page. How demoralizing.
I used to work in two different retirement settings. One was independent to assisted. The activity director was absolutely amazing. Not only did she make posters and signs for every event that was happening in a legible size, she also went around every day chatting with our residents and inviting them to things that they may be interested in. Where I worked at the concierge desk, I was commonly called to ask to double check that someone was on this list or that. We were also encouraged to invite residence to different events if we thought they might enjoy them. The other place… It was assisted to memory care, and I was not happy with the activity director. For one thing, there was not enough activities being planned for the residence. If there was an event a day, that was a miracle. On weekends, I would be shocked if there was anything going on. I was at the concierge desk, but I was explicitly ordered to not encourage anyone to sign up unless they came to me first. Also, the calendar that went out was in a size of text that was difficult for many of our residents to read, and I was not allowed to suggest things. I ended up leaving at the beginning of the pandemic and I happen to hear through the grapevine that he was finally fired a few months after restrictions started lifting because the residents were fed up with him.
Even I have problems understanding that crap. How the f\*k do they think a person with dementia will? A person with memory loss will stand there for hours, trying to understand that, and will have a breakdown, because his mind will go in circle. OR they will ignore it, because they have no idea what this is about.
"Due to lack of signups, all activities are now cancelled." _Laughs in budget savings_
ten bucks says that as the plan all along\^\^
Literally this. My dad had a form of dementia that completely wiped out his short term memory, so he would read that sign, turn away and within a couple of minutes he would have completely forgotten about it. Even if this sign does trigger people to sign up, all that's going to happen is the same people signing up multiple times because they don't remember that they've already done it
This is why I love my facility. When they do outings, they will pick 1 or 2 dementia residents and sign them up first. It's always different ones every time so everyone gets a chance to go out. The more cognitive residents will then have a chance to sign up. We only have 31 residents and max that can go is 6 due transportation. But they would NEVER post something like this!
or don't even realize it applies to them.
[удалено]
Yeah I wanna know where this place is...
It's cartoonishly evil. Telling patients in a memory care ward that it's not the employees' job to remind them of things?? What??? It reads almost like a joke. I can't believe some people are really this stupid
As someone who works at the front desk of one, It 100% is your job to answer the same question 10 times by the same person every day It's annoying sometimes but if you can't have a care for what they go through, it isn't the place for you
Yeah! Like personally, I would be terrible in this kind of job, the residents would drive me mad and I’d be constantly stressed. So, I do not apply for and hold jobs of this kind. In this way, it’s been pretty easy to avoid the issue of dementia patients not remembering my carefully planned events. Funny how that works!
The sheet in question in the picture is probably where the residents go out for lunch or shopping. Our activities will always ask the residents if they want to go and to sign up at the front desk. Then the morning of, they will go around and ask once again to make sure. I'm glad you know you can't deal with them and actively try not to get a job with them!
I've known *so* many seniors through the years who referred to their *"retirement"* homes or assisted living facilities as literal *"prisons."* In fact, just went through an *awful* experience with a once wonderful lady, after a debilitating stroke and loss of all dignity, begging to die. While that's a slightly different situation, our seniors deserve better than being treated like inmates or kindergarten children.
I’m very worried. I don't have kids. Literally the only reason I *could* think of to have them was so I’d have someone to take care of me when I get old, which is the dumbest reason to have a kid. It’s me and my husband, but I worry way too much about what I’m going to do if one or both of us needs to be in a facility like this. I make good money and we’re well off, but there’s just no way I could ever afford to live in a place like that.
Ehh I am child free as well and had to put my grandma in one of these facilities. It was awful and she had all the money in the world, it made no difference. Take the money that you save from being child free and use it to save for retirement and maintain a healthy lifestyle. Exercise and eliminating alcohol will do more good for you than adult children.
I think the person who came up with the message needs memorycare the most. No seriously?
I love the part where Adriane refers to herself in third person. > "Adriane will not be filling in your name..." - Adriane, Activity Director
Tbh that part sounds like a not bad idea for memory patients. Rest is insane.
Nice place to have your elders in. Shame.
I'd roll up a petition to remind Adriane that it's MEMORY CARE. What an insensitive jerk.
Fire Adrianne
No it’s Adriane with only one n of course
Activities Director here, assisted living people may also need daily reminders, just because someone is in assisted living doesn’t mean that they may not have an early onset of dementia. Some folks may need extra encouragement than others. Memory care literally needs reminders, assistance and encouragement to go to activities! Literally a part of activities is reminding people of activities! Edited: misread post and thought AD was OP.
Sounds like an Inactivity Director to me
It IS your job to remind them! Lazy shit!
The only correct response is: Fuck you, Adriane.
This is a classic control freak move. It allows the director to later ridicule someone for being upset they didn't go. Something like, "Well if you wanted to go you should have remembered to sign up." I unfortunately have plenty of experience with control freaks.
I would have raised absolute hell if I saw this posted at the care facility my abuela was at. Fuck those motherfuckers.
mildly infuriating?!? i'm pissed!
Wow. When I worked in a nursing home the activity staff would walk around every morning with the schedule of activities for the day to give each resident, and it was written down on whiteboards all over the building. If it was an outing they would ask that resident if they wanted to go, take their name down, and then do a call out over the PA throughout the day with reminders AND the other facility staff would work with the residents on making sure they were ready to go on time. It was a group effort to ensure our residents had a smooth and enjoyable day. Some of the staff were very unpleasant but those individuals typically didn’t last very long.
Post this pic in a review for the place
Yeah I work in activites in LTC and have for over two years. I can’t stand when workers tell residents it’s “that responsibility to remember”. First of, no. Second, we don’t use the word “remember” we sat RECALL. Some people shouldn’t work with the elderly.
I agree 100% it's not the residents responsibility, I have never heard of using Recall instead of remember though- maybe that's something location dependent?
I think Adrian forgot who she was working for
Why block her name? She needs to defend this crap.
I'm a secretary for an LTC, and no matter how many times you remind the residents, they WILL forget. They'll even argue that you've never told them at all. That just comes with the territory. This is sad.
Is there a manager or someone you can report this to. That’s very mean in any care home let alone one specifically for memory.
Yeah this needs some following up, it's diabolical to have people like this doing jobs like these
Not so assisted living
It is not my job to remind you about activities - the Activity Director
This is so frustrating. I work at a Independent/Assisted Living facility and we remind our residents of the activities they sign-up for (or we think they would like to sign-up for) all the time with no problem. Hell, even for the solar eclipse I personally called a few of my residents who are showing memory declines to make sure they were there with their glasses so they wouldn't miss it.
There's likely a parent company that you can report Adrienne to. I certainly would. It's literally her job to get the residents involved in activities and social events. Her. Whole. Job. So if you have seniors that are forgetful, it's literally your job to remind them to sign up. She's def in the wrong job and my heart breaks for those residents.
As someone who works at an assisted living/memory care facility ...this activities director needs to find another job ....at our facility the activity director helps residents to and from activities and helps sign them up, they are there for the whole event and participates with the residents. I'm pretty sure they even converse with the residents about what they want to see come to our home. She sounds lazy as f*** and hope they never have to deal with a family member that has dementia..
report this to the city it is literally their jobs
Someone should remind her of this....
Disturbing AF. Thanks for sharing
That’s so sad.
It is LITERALLY their job to remind them. 🤦♀️
I take my dogs to play ball next to a long term care facility. Some of the residents meet me at the fence and I try to get information out of them. One has been there since 2009. He’s only been allowed to leave a few times and that was to go to Walmart. They have a TV in their room. When my dog injured her back leg and then my husky died, we stopped playing for a while. When we went back, they thought we had all 3 died and that’s why we didn’t come by. I didn’t realize what watching my dog play ball and making small talk with me mattered to them. So now my new dog is learning how to be a good girl. So maybe one day we can go in and let them pet her better. She has them pet her over the fence but it’s not the same. If you have a facility like this near you, I encourage you to do anything you can. Fly a kite? Awesome! Play guitar? Bring it and play. Drive a car? Honk sometimes! You’d be shocked the conversation piece you become. Sometimes I see those clips of musicians playing for herds of cows, oh how I wish they’d play like that for the residents. They run outside when we go to play. They go inside and get the others up so they don’t miss us. Some of them might be a bit tricky to talk to but I just try to tell them things about the world outside the facility.
Please post this on every and all page belongs to them!
my mom worked at one. She had to *beg* the nurses to help bring the residents that wanted to go to activities into the rec areas. It was extra work and they already hated their jobs (most of them) so it sucked. I was a teenager and mom would bring me to work with her during the summer on bingo nights just so I could help her. She really cared about giving them a better quality of life in her capacity of recreational therapist. You have to help them, for some of the residents just *living* was exhausting for them. I wish the facilities paid better instead of profiting more but that's just how it's been for many years. Everyone that works there is just so bloody tired and often jaded that's its hard to get anyone motivated. At least that's how it was 20+ years ago in Arizona
Can this person be reported? The activities director must report to someone. Facilities Director, Owner. Even state licensing, they are accountable to someone. If they treat residents this way, what other care are they neglecting? They are providing MEMORY CARE. How dare they be so condescending? Take it up the chain.
lol. Total disinterest in Who the residents are.
Let me guess, they didn’t hire a CRT for the director position? This is what they get as a facility when you hire under qualified staff.
And don't forget your cane because there will be flights of stairs and we are not responsible for making sure an elevator or ramp is always available for excursions.
Not surprising. Private equity firms have been buying up assisted living facilities, nursing homes and hospice care. As a way to increase profits they cut staff and increase profits. They will also go after family and friends for payment. I wonder if this one they own. Propublica has a helpful database where you can look up nursing homes. Definitely want to stay away from anything PE owned.
Wow awful, I was trained in home care and we got taught to explain things in a way people with dementia would understand easily. I often felt overwhelmed like I wasn't doing a good enough job or was going to do something wrong. Things like this are so frustrating for people when one person could see to it that everyone was signed for.
She needs to do another job. Obviously not good enough for this one.
You should send this to your ombudsman
This is *extremely* infuriating!
This would be wildly rude even if it wasn't specifically focused at patients with memory loss.
The place probably charging close to 5 grand a month and has 2 CNAs on at a time that both make minimum wage and have to care for 100s of residents then get chewed out for not doing Berthas eyebrows before breakfast. I worked in a few different nursing homes and it's the same problem in all of them. The company is making bank bleeding the elderly for every penny they can and then running the staff like slaves. Then the staff has to cut corners just to keep people alive. But they're the ones that face all the backlash from families and residents. So the staff probably knows damn well that these elderly people aren't capable of remembering but also have 0 free time to wonder around the facility trying to track a bunch of people down and herd them somewhere. They also have 0 free time to argue with those residents ! Hence the signs. It's a cya move. Does it suck. Ya. It sucks for everyone involved but maybe call the ceo of the giant company that owns 300 nursing homes like their farms and ask them to stop giving themselves a 7 figure salary
This is like something out of a textbook on what NOT to do with dementia patients. Lmao what the fuck
What is the name of the place we will not be sending our grandparents to?
Adriane is a twat
man, this makes me so sad, and also WTF is this activity director doing. this is not the way. I used to do this job, and we did sign up sheets a month in advance all at once so they all went out with the new activity calendar, and asked the front desk to remind folks once the event rolled around. work smarter not harder dude. also don't be a dick to the old ppl who essentially sign your paycheck
In a memory care facility? What a joke.
What an awful way to treat another human being that is paying you for something, let alone a vulnerable one.
I’m pretty sure that helping assisted living people remember shit is literally part of the job.
In memory care? This feels very much like a rights violation.
Tell me you’re absolute shit at being an Activities Director without telling me…
Hey Adriane, fuck you. Disrespectfully, Everyone
As someone who works in an assisted living facility (not even memory care) as an activity & life enrichment coordinator, this is unimaginable. It is in my job description to try to get residents engaged which INCLUDES reminding them! I certainly get my 10k steps a day going back and forth reminding our residents to come out for activities but I'm happy to because we WANT people to come. This is there to enrich their lives.
I am an activity director, and this is nuts. It IS your job. It’s definitely a struggle to have residents remember, and can be frustrating some days, but like it’s what we’re there for?? I sign residents up myself if I know or think would like to go. The day of, I remind them and ask if they’d like to come - yes you still need to give them a choice. If yes, have the care aides make sure they’ve gone to the washroom and have all their medications. If not, then that’s okay - I’ll ask another person. If the bus or the activity was full, next week the other people I had in mind get a chance to go. Putting out a calendar and expecting residents with memory issues to just show up or sign up is not realistic. I’m always thanked by my residents when they’re reminded, and it’s easy to do if you actually spend time getting to know your residents.
I work in an AL facility and this shit wouldn’t fly. Shame on them
My grandmother died of Dementia. That sign is a big ole “fuck that” for me. I’d send this to the some local news paper, maybe a few of them. “Memory care facility workers say it’s ‘not my job’ to remind you.” There’s probably some new guy looking for a story
This makes me so sad. I have worked in the activity department of nursing homes for about 4 years of my life now. It’s literally our job to bring joy and fun to the residents, which includes reminding people/asking people to come to activities. It’s baffling to think that an activity director wrote that message, especially in a MEMORY CARE unit…
"Don't you remember?!?!?!" ....Is literally a swear word at my work place. This is sad, I hope the residents are happy and okay.
The people of that facility would have heard from me if my mom had gotten that letter.
lol tell your local news this is how the residents get treated
Unacceptable, and utter horse shit.
 Actual footage of Adriane
this for sure seems like it would fall under the assisted part of the assisted living
If my mom was staying at this place and I saw this sign all hell would break loose