Helping your parent choose an assisted living community? Here are a few things to consider before starting your search:

Living Quarters

While some assisted living facilities offer only single-room or apartment-style accommodations, some facilities offer multiple types of living quarters to choose from – including multi-resident rooms. If your parent can still tend to most of their daily needs themselves, they may prefer to live in a small apartment setting where they have access to their own private kitchen.

If they need help with preparing food and handling other daily tasks, a single room with 24-hour staff assistance availability might be a better option. Knowing ahead of time will help you narrow down the facility options quickly to only those that offer the type of living quarters your parent expects to have.

Social Activities

Another thing that should be seriously considered is social activities. What does your parent enjoy spending their time doing the most? Whether they like to sew, paint, play cards, woodwork, or swim, there should be an assisted living facility out there that offers such activities.

However, each community offers different social activities and classes to choose from, so you must check their complete activity and class list to ensure that your parent's preferred options are included. Do not just assume that because a community offers a long list of activities that your parent's preferences will be listed.

Assistance Requirements

You should consider the type of assistance your parent needs every day and in the future. If your parent can still bathe themselves but is having problems putting their shoes on, chances are that it will not be too long before they will need help with bathing. If they show any signs of the need for future assistance of any kind in the near future, you should act as if they need those services now and keep them in mind when comparing assistance services offered by prospective assisted-living communities.

Medical Care Accommodations

Not all assisted-living facilities provide onsite medical care and access to doctors, but some do. Also, some communities provide transportation to and from healthcare facilities when necessary, but some do not. If your parent needs to see a doctor at least once a week, the facility they live in should be able and willing to schedule their appointments and make sure that they get to and from their doctor appointments without having to make travel arrangements themselves.

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