Its a sad situation, we kept my mother in her home till the last second, putting someone in an impersonal old age home, is pretty cold thing to do:2 cents:

Old school, but i i'm on our side.

old (and sick) people need professional help - about food, cleaning, bedding, medicine etc.

As family you can be mostly an emotional help and do grunt work, but without proper knowledge you can screw things up.

some people have enough space to keep their family member at home and have nurses coming in every day for up to 16 hours, for others thats not possible and then a (good) nursing home can be appropriate.

not every case is the same

Over the past 3 years my mom has been in and out of a couple of nursing homes for a few different things. She had been in three different homes. One was good, one was bad and one was horrible.

There is a ton of great advice in this thread. One thing I might add is that there are a lot of places out there so make sure to visit several. Depending on where you live you can also call the social security office and ask if they have a disables persons advocate or elderly advocate that you can meet with. This is a person who's job it is to make sure that people get good care. They can help lead you to good homes and give you some good ideas for resources. The advocate where I live was amazing. I first met her when my mom was in the terrible home that kept screwing up her medicine. She came in, kicked ass and took names and got results.

When you visit a home here are a few things to check out: 1. the smell. It is going to have that antiseptic smell, but if it smells like shit and piss they might be understaffed and the place might be unclean. 2. the food. ask about the food. Visit the kitchen and see if it is clean and if it appears to be staffed by normal people not tweekers. 3. Ask if you can talk to some of the other residents. If they won't let you that is a warning sign. If they don't mind just ask around, ask how people feel about living there and so on. You might be shocked at how honest some of the people are. 4. staff. Ask about how many nurses/CNA/staff they have per person. If it seems like a huge ratio like 40 people per staff member they might be overworked and the care level could suffer.

Anyway, there are just a few things I picked up in dealing with some of this stuff. It is tough and I wish her and your family well.

Nursing homes are not as bad as TV makes them out. It's a good job and the people there know it so they take good care of the residents and the residents get to hang with other people there age and do fun stuff.

My gramps wants to go to one, we are just waiting a little longer.

That's fair enough then, hope you can sort everything out.

My grandfather had a series of strokes and was in a nursing home for 6 years, luckily his house sale covered the costs. Although in the UK if you have less than $50k in assets the state do pay.

My dear old Gran (Who was 86) put HERSELF in a nursing home :)

She went to an 'Open Day' and requested she stayed there!

She died aged 98, happy as a pig in shit !

Genetically speaking you have a long shit road ahead of you, congrats!

what are you supposed to do though? we are looking for more of just a place that will make her meals, give her meds as she can do most other things but right now where she is she just watches tv or sleeps all day. she can't drive and gets no social interaction besides my girlfriend (her daughter) going to see her a few times per week. she says she is always confused about what time of day or what day it is. seems like she is just waiting to die. our hope is by doing this she will get more social interaction and maybe make some friends, have a reason to get out of bed in the morning. however like i said we are not looking at a nursing home but rather an assisted living situation.

I went to visit my gram last night and she showed amazing improvement in her mental abilities. Apparently, her infection is clearing up and this is causing her mind to recover at the same time. This means that I can definitely send her to an assisted living/rehabilitation home for the time and care she needs to get back on her feet and that I can cross the nursing home option off the list.

I did go and visit the nursing home and spoke with the case manager and even spoke with a few of the residents. The case manager was very nice, the residents seemed to well taken care of, but depressed. The place just had a very depressing feel to it, green walls with a lack of natural light gave the place a strange feel. I wouldn't want to stay there.

The assisted living facility is a very nice place. It's got a feeling of home to it. Activities going on, residents talking to one another, lounge areas that were filled, I saw a few therapy dogs, it just made me feel good about sending her there. Of course, it's not home, but I think it's about as good as it's going to get.

Again, thank you to everyone for all of the helpful tips and information!