Health Reign

Common Care Home Myths

There comes a time in our lives when poor health or infirmity forces us to evaluate our lifestyle going forward. With an empty nest, a large, relatively maintenance-intensive house will not be a practical place to live in anymore. Unless of course you can afford live-in maids and chauffeurs.

For the rest of us who need to make a retirement fund last, a care home is a necessary consideration. But there are common care home myths that need to be dispelled as there is considerable misinformation out there on what care home can be like.

1. Care homes are depressing places to live in. Good care homes have communal rooms where one can socialize, make new friends, and participate in activities that the car home may organize. Most care homes organize regular field trips that take its residents to parks, malls, and other public places. Forward thinking care homes also make use of technologies like computers and smartphones so that individual residents can reach out to their loved ones whenever they want.
2. There is no privacy in a care home. Good care home provide their residents with individual rooms, where one can shut the door for some quiet time. Conversely, you can also invite co-residents and friends over if your room is big enough. Some care homes have suites that are homes unto themselves.
3. The food is lousy in a care home. A good care home is aware that its residents may be picky eaters or have special diets. Look into your prospective residences carefully, as lousy food is an indicator of lousy care.
4. Staying in a care home is expensive. If you consider that what you pay to a care home covers all your costs of living, then staying in a care home is actually cost efficient. Of course, you may pay more, but a decent care home has maintenance, operational, and staffing costs to take care of too.
5. Staff members are impersonal and uncaring. This may be true, but this need not be a given. Find out the ratio of staffers to residents, as this will indicate whether they are overworked or not. Find out too what kind of training and educational credentials they need to present to qualify working for that particular care home you are considering.

It is true that there are managed care homes in Victoria BC that live up to the stereotype of substandard places to live the rest of your life in. This is why it behooves you take a good, long, and hard look at the care home facilities you are eyeing for the next stage of your life.