How to Choose the Right Nursing Home

There comes a point in our lives when we have to put our aged loved ones in a nursing home. It will be difficult, but we need to make sure that our elderly receives all the care that he or she should get. Finding the right nursing home will require a lot of research.

Nursing home staffs generally tell you that the ratio between staff to resident is higher when you start to ask about it. If you want a more honest look at the ratio, walk in a nursing home across the country and you will see a paper with all those staff ratio information. It will provide you with honest answers than what the staff told you.

The paper will not only list the nursing staff but also the professional status of the staff. The RN in some of the staff's names stands for Registered Nurse. Most registered nurses work during the day, but at night there are LPN's or licensed Practical Nurses to help the RN with the night shift.

The CAN in the CAN column of the paper stands for the amount of certified nurse's aides on staff per shift. In a day shift of a 200-bed nursing home, you may see more or less six RN's, up to twelve LPN's and twenty-five CAN's. If an aide calls in sick, that aide is not replaced. If all members of the staff show up as scheduled, then everything works just fine.

More members in a staff do not mean that everyone is working harder. The best thing you can do is to take a tour of a nursing home and count the staff members who are really working.

The day shift staff has more members than the night shift staff, which usually only has less than seven aides on a night shift. The seven aides are responsible for turning the elderly residents who need to return every four hours, and those who need assistance in going to the bathroom.

You also need to research on the activities of the nursing home for the residents. Take a tour of the nursing home during their activity hours and see how the staff interacts with the elderly. Do they all look happy? Keep in mind that the nursing home with the most number of activities is always the better one. You can also look at the calendar of activities in a nursing home. Make sure you choose the nursing home that has the activities that your loved one will enjoy.

Also ask the staff of the nursing home about visiting rules. Ask them if you are allowed to volunteer at their activities. A nursing home usually needs a number of volunteers whenever they have activities.

Also make sure that you visit the physical therapy room. Talk to the therapist to find out if the treatments will help your loved one. Physical therapists not only provide rehabilitation for the residents who need it, they also help all residents maintain and maybe even improve their physical skills.

When you have done all these, you are now ready to decide which nursing home is appropriate for your elderly loved one. Once you have sent him or her there, be sure to visit often and volunteer as much as you can.