Results tagged “home care” from Caring For Our Parents

Receiving personal care at home, as opposed to in a nursing facility or other institution, is not possible without two things: Somebody to provide the assistance and an appropriate place to live. A southern Virginia minister has come up with a possible solution to the second.

MEDCottage is a portable, modular self-contained 24x12 dwelling that could be attached to the home of a family member, friend, or other caregiver. The home contains a small kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom, as well as high-tech assistive devices, video monitors, and a lift. It is designed to rent for $2,000-a-month. The Washington Post ran a nice article about it yesterday, or you can check out the company's own Website here.

This seems to be an ingenious solution to a vexing problem. Some people may be able to retrofit an existing space to care for a frail or disabled relative. But that can be expensive and complicated. A solution such as a modular add-on may be less costly and, in many cases, more appropriate. This may be especially true for people who need intensive personal care for a relatively short time--perhaps because they are recovering  from a severe illness or because they are dying.

Modular living spaces such as this are no panacea. They are probably not suited for very long-term care arrangements, and family caregivers need to be well-trained in how to use all the equipment.

They also face two other issues, One is money: Will Medicaid or private long-term care insurance pay for dwellings such as this? The newly-enacted CLASS Act will since will offer a cash benefit. 

The second issue, reports The Post, is the NIMBY problem. Sadly, but not surprisingly, local Virginia officials oppose the dwellings, claiming they violate zoning laws. Here is what one Fairfax County (Va.) official had to say:  

"Is it a good idea to throw people into a storage container and put them in your back yard?" said Fairfax County Supervisor Jeff C. McKay (D-Lee). "This is the granny pod. What's next? The college dropout pod?" 

This sort of thinking is beyond depressing, but it is out there. I hope that as time goes by, technology, financing and perhaps even some good common sense will combine to create some important new alternatives for people to stay at home.     

When family caregivers are under a lot of stress, the chances increase that their loved ones will have to move to a nursing home. That's the conlusion of an important new study by my Urban Institute colleagues Brenda Spillman and Sharon Long.

That conclusion may seem obvious to caregivers, but Spillman and Long back it up with some hard data. They found that when family members suffer physical strain, lack of sleep, or financial pressures, their elders are far less likely to be able stay at home. Their research squares with what I saw over and over again with the families in my book Caring for Our Parents.

One family, Steve and Judy Dow of Burlington, Vermont were trying to care for Steve's mom, Judy's parents, and raise two high school kids while working full time--Steve as a contractor and Judy as a public school teacher. It finally became too much, especially with Steve's mother who suffered from severe dementia, and the couple made the decision to move her into an assisted living facility.

There are lots of other reasons why chronically ill seniors are no longer able to stay at home, including their own declining health. But Brenda and Sharon conclude that if severe caregiver stress could somehow be eliminated, nursing home admissions could be cut by more than 70,000. 

Finding ways to reduce these crushing levels of stress is not easy, but this research, which expands on the results of some earlier studies, shows why it is important to try.