Pacific Grove, CA Aging At Home Is Now In Vogue : Assisted Living On The Outs

A caregiver smiling and holding the woman

COVID-19 has made aging at home in vogue.  The Wall Street Journal recently wrote an article on how coronavirus is changing the way Americans face retirement by “accelerating developments already under way,” physician Bill Thomas said to the reporter.  “It’s going to make people rethink retirement altogether,” Laura Carstensen, director of Stanford University’s Center on Longevity said.  Most people will age at home, and remain independent, she said.  I believe that her view is true.  With roughly 40% of COVID-19 being staff and residents of nursing homes, nobody wants to go into a facility these days.  We have been getting a number of calls from fearful children who want to get their parents out of assisted living and back home, where they can reduce the risk of coronavirus exposure.  Although COVID-19 will eventually be wiped out, there will clearly be more devastating diseases in the future which makes these facilities dangerous.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-covid-19-will-change-aging-and-retirement-11605452401

Carmel, CA Aging At Home Is Now In Vogue : Assisted Living On The Outs

COVID-19 has made aging at home in vogue.  The Wall Street Journal recently wrote an article on how coronavirus is changing the way Americans face retirement by “accelerating developments already under way,” physician Bill Thomas said to the reporter.  “It’s going to make people rethink retirement altogether,” Laura Carstensen, director of Stanford University’s Center on Longevity said.  Most people will age at home, and remain independent, she said.  I believe that her view is true.  With roughly 40% of COVID-19 being staff and residents of nursing homes, nobody wants to go into a facility these days.  We have been getting a number of calls from fearful children who want to get their parents out of assisted living and back home, where they can reduce the risk of coronavirus exposure.  Although COVID-19 will eventually be wiped out, there will clearly be more devastating diseases in the future which makes these facilities dangerous.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-covid-19-will-change-aging-and-retirement-11605452401

Ombudsman Office Unable To Enter Assisted Living Facilities, Making Some Lax

A caregiver smiling and holding the woman

An investigative reporter unveiled an expose on a chain of nursing homes in California called Country Villa which has 18 nursing homes that have been unlicensed for years.  Two of their facilities lost over a dozen of residents due to COVID-19.   The Staye of California requires that nursing home operators be licensed by the California Department of Public Health, which oversees nursing homes.  But the Department has allowed the owner to operate with a “pending license” for years.  The owner, Shlomo Rechnitz, has acquired 81 nursing homes with 9,000 beds, making him the largest operator in California.  “I’m just a little speechless when it comes to this ownership nightmare in California and now it’s gotten to this point,” said Molly Davies, the Los Angeles County long-term care ombudsman.  In Monterey, our ombudsman said that they have not had in-person access to assisted living facilities during the pandemic, a situation which is just making things worse.

https://calmatters.org/projects/california-oversight-nursing-homes/?campaign_id=49&emc=edit_ca_20210407&instance_id=28956&nl=california-today&regi_id=52105769&segment_id=55031&te=1&user_id=7052b81671c57203c64c377c7522baa7

California Sues Brookdale Nursing Home Chain

A senior woman sitting and looking out from the window

Salinas), claiming that they have manipulated the Medicare ratings system to make their nursing homes look more attractive than they actually are.  The lawsuit is among the first of its kind to accuse nursing homes of submitting false information to the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, or CMS, which uses data on the amount of time spent with residents and pairs it with in-person examinations by state health inspectors.  The facility is then ranked based on stars, allowing consumers to choose which facility they want to put a loved one in.  The lawsuit accuses Brookdale of falsifying its payroll-based journal entries, effectively stating that they have more staff than they do.   Prosecutors also are accusing Brookdale of illegally evicting or transferring residents so the chain could replace them with clients that generate more revenue.  A former Brookdale nursing assistant said in a deposition that her supervisors told her to falsify medical records to make it look like patients received more care than they did.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/15/business/california-lawsuit-brookdale-senior-living-nursing-homes.html?campaign_id=49&emc=edit_ca_20210316&instance_id=28107&nl=california-today&regi_id=52105769&segment_id=53505&te=1&user_id=7052b81671c57203c64c377c7522baa7

https://www.brookdale.com/en/communities/brookdale-salinas.html?cid=yext

L.G.B.T Seniors Fear Going Back In The Closet As They Enter Retirement Homes

A senior woman sitting and looking out from the window

The New Yorker had a sad article about a Brooklyn retirement home which featured twelve of the country’s 3 million L.G.B.T. seniors, many of whom fear going back into the close as they enter assisted living or senior communities.  34% of those surveyed fear having to hide their sexuality when entering a retirement facility, but a national chain called Watermark is trying to change that.  It is pursuing a platinum accreditation from SAGE, an organization that serves L.G.B.T. seniors.  This is a sad story which, hopefully, will have a happy ending eventually.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/03/08/tallying-the-lost-years-for-lgbt-seniors?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_030621&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&bxid=5d9650350564ce3ac11dd859&cndid=1617543&hasha=7052b81671c57203c64c377c7522baa7&hashb=5708aa7994855c44974ae69faa48e3e4bacb03a0&hashc=cbd2b1a310c325a9dac49d86de69a91a6d69f6980ca8166044e7444b94298971&esrc=Auto_Subs&mbid=CRMNYR012019&utm_term=TNY_Daily

Monterey, CA Nursing Homes Hit Hardest By COVID-19

A man covering his mouth and nose with N95 Mask

I recently wrote about the fact that although the number of cases of coronavirus in nursing homes is low as a percentage of all cases, they account for a full 40% of deaths from COVID-19.  California’s Department of Public Health has listed 21 skilled nursing and assisted-living facilities that have reported COVID-19 cases.  The worst by far is Windsor Monterey Care Center at 78, followed by Pacific Coast Post Acute at 72, and Windsor The Ridge Rehab Center which has had 67 patient cases and 62 staff members carrying the virus.  Cypress Ridge Care Center has had 49 patients with coronavirus and 40 staff members, while Windsor Skyline Care Center has had 47 patients and 14 staff members with the virus.

This data shows why local hospitals are discharging many patients to their homes rather than have them go to a rehab center prior to going home.

https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-coronavirus-cases-tracking-outbreak/monterey-county/

https://familyinhomecaregiving.com/long-term-care-facilities-account-for-40-of-covid-19-deaths/

Long Term Care Facilities Account For 40% Of COVID-19 Deaths

A caregiver showing documents to the senior

published a story about how the fear of catching the disease has caused many patients to have gone weeks without a shower or having their teeth brushed, while residents with dementia have suffered from lack of human contact.  This often leads to depression, loss of weight, mobility and speech.  Sharon Wallace, a senior whose multiple sclerosis caused her to go into a nursing home, told the NYT, “I feel like my health is going downhill.”  This has made Aging In Place a more popular option as Assisted Living Facilities become hotbeds for disease.  “Nursing homes are really little hospitals, yet they’re not staffed like it.  If you asked an I.C.U. nurse to take care of 15 people, she’d laugh at you, but that’s essentially what we have,” Chris Laxton, the executive director of AMDA, the Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine said.

Monterey, CA Isolation Of Nursing Homes Can Cause Seniors To Give Up Hope

A senior woman sitting and looking out from the window

The San Francisco Chronicle recently wrote a sad story about Shirley Drexler who died two months into the coronavirus pandemic, “not from COVID-19.  She died of despair.”  According to the article, she was called the “queen of Rhoda Goldman Plaza,” an assisted living facility in the Western Addition.  She joined in almost every activity, flitting from table to table during long lunch hours.  However, on March 17, Drexler and every other resident were abruptly shut in their rooms.  She stopped eating and didn’t want to get out of bed.  “It was like she lost the will to keep going,” Adrienne Fair, assistant executive director of the facility, told the San Francisco chronicle.  At Family inHome Caregiving, we find this story all too familiar.  When family members decide to institutionalize a senior, they often lose hope and quickly pass away.  Without the familiar faces of friends and family and their normal routine, they often lose the will to live.  At Family inHome Caregiving, we focus on giving our senior clients plenty of exercise, nutritious meals and plenty of social interaction.  We strive to allow seniors to remain in their own homes and independent for as long as possible and are seeing many families pull their loved ones out of local facilities to be brought back home so they don’t catch COVID-19.


https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Bay-Area-seniors-struggle-with-isolation-15673820.php?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=headlines&utm_campaign=sfc_morningfix&sid=5936af7424c17c09a38000c4

Monterey, CA Nursing Homes Hit Hard In Coronavirus Pandemic

A caregiver showing documents to the senior

Almost all nursing homes in Monterey County have reported coronavirus outbreaks, and this may signal a paradigm shift where more people decide to live out their final years at home.  The U.S. currently has the largest number of nursing home residents in the world and accounts for the largest number of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S., a total of 115K.  Occupancy in nursing homes is down by 15%, due both to deaths and a decrease in admissions.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-spurs-families-to-shun-nursing-homes-a-shift-that-appears-long-lasting-11608565170

Monterey, CA Aging At Home Is Now In Vogue : Assisted Living On The Outs

A caregiver smiling and holding the woman

COVID-19 has made aging at home in vogue.  The Wall Street Journal recently wrote an article on how coronavirus is changing the way Americans face retirement by “accelerating developments already under way,” physician Bill Thomas said to the reporter.  “It’s going to make people rethink retirement altogether,” Laura Carstensen, director of Stanford University’s Center on Longevity said.  Most people will age at home, and remain independent, she said.  I believe that her view is true.  With roughly 40% of COVID-19 being staff and residents of nursing homes, nobody wants to go into a facility these days.  We have been getting a number of calls from fearful children who want to get their parents out of assisted living and back home, where they can reduce the risk of coronavirus exposure.  Although COVID-19 will eventually be wiped out, there will clearly be more devastating diseases in the future which makes these facilities dangerous.   

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-covid-19-will-change-aging-and-retirement-11605452401