One thing of which my parents did do in planning ahead was to prepare wills and a power of attorney. Twenty years ago, my brother, sister, and I had been informed by Mom and Dad their wishes and they explained the reasons for their decisions. Their hope was to avoid misunderstandings down the road. I was aware that my parents designated me as the executor and POA (power of attorney). This made the process and decision-making less complicated. A POA can give one the ability to make medical decisions and, basically, do everything on behalf of the disabled or ill family member.
Due to the fact that I was the one who had the ability to sign for Mom and had a little more flexibility in taking time from work to deal with her affairs, the decision was made to find her a place near me in Austin for the time being. Now to find one…..
What is the difference between acute rehabilitation and skilled nursing rehabilitation? How do you locate and select these places? These were the pressing questions. The good news is that hospitals provide social workers to help explain the process, answer questions, provide information and resources to help make decisions, and aid in making the arrangements. I will do my best to answer these questions in layman’s terms. An acute rehab facility is for patients who have suffered some type of disability due to illness or accident and they have the ability to withstand several hours per day of physical and occupational therapy, as well as, speech therapy, if needed. These places want the patient to be somewhat able to do some things on their own and have goals for recovery. A skilled nursing rehab facility is basically a short term nursing home that offers physical, occupational, and speech therapy to patients who require a substantial amount of care in order to do basic activities. Mom needed a skilled nursing facility because she needed assistance to eat, dress, bathe, and move. She was bed-ridden and had been given a feeding tube in order to get nourishment.
With the help of my sister, I reviewed skilled nursing facilities in my area and tried to narrow them down based on the type of rehabilitation services they provided. Not all facilities cater to stroke patients. Once I had a list of places that specialized in stroke recovery, I used the website from Medicare, https://www.medicare.gov/nursinghomecompare/search.html? , to investigate the ratings of these places and any complaints or issues from their inspections. The social workers discouraged giving consideration to reviews on the internet for these places, because, “One person may have had issues that they wrote about when many more had a good experience and didn’t write about it on these sites.” My advice is read it all and consider it all. We selected about three places that had decent scores and comments that were nearby my business to go in-person to check out.
It is very important to visit these places in-person first. Of course, they want you to schedule an appointment in advance, but I suggest going in when they are not expecting you. You are most likely going to see an “unproduced” version of the way the place looks and what goes on there regularly.
The next post will give you a checklist of things to evaluate when visiting a long term care or short term care facility.