Exclusive: The Super Memory Club

Here’s a club so exclusive that even Brooke Astor couldn’t help you get in. It’s the Super Memory Club, restricted by luck and good habits to about 1 in 200 people. And did we mention you have to be 90 years old to be eligible?

Our sister site, Topeldercares.com, has just posted a short article on the Super Memory Club. Some of its members live in the huge Orange County retirement community of Laguna Woods. There they are part of the 90+ Study, a joint project of USC and UC Irvine. The researchers are learning some things about the factors that help some lucky few reach their 90’s without brain deterioration such as dementia. In the case of many of the participants, significant social interaction and the game of bridge are key to their good brain health, along with a healthy dose of the right genes.

For more information:
Topeldercares.com

New Eldercare Resource Debuts - Topeldercares.com

June 24, 2008 — Baby boomers fortunate enough to still have living parents gained a new resource today, Topeldercares.com. This new online resource can help adult children find the best eldercare, assisted living, independent living, CCRC, and nursing home facilities for their loved ones. The website is a sister site to Topretirements.com, serves a similar audience, and has a site structure that will be very familiar to visitors of that popular online retirement community resource.

As a welcome to the site visitors can download a useful free eBook, “The Practical Guide to Selecting Eldercare Facilities“. This new eldercare resource features a variety of helps for children of elders, as well as seniors who are looking for the best eldercare resources.

The Eldercare Advice section provides practical articles on how to select a quality facility, as well as how to engage the elder in the process. The Eldercare Forums let site users pose questions and ask for advice from their peers who are going through similar experiences. And of course one of the main purposes is to provide a database of the best eldercare and retirement facilities, so that visitors can identify places in their towns and states that can provide the right eldercare for their loved ones.

To encourage the widest possible list of resources for site visitors, owners of eldercare facilities are encouraged to list their properties on the site (there is no charge for a basic listing).

Private Nursing Care Centers May Be Cutting Too Deep

November 16 update (original post -September 27) — Today the Times reported that congressional hearings are looking into charges that nursing homes. It reported that “Members of the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee and the Senate Special Committee on Aging proposed measures to require nursing homes to disclose ownership and to require regulators to release information about poorly managed homes.”

–
September 27 — The New York Times reported this week that investor-owned nursing homes tend to have fewer staff and experience more serious deficiencies and other problems than the national average. The article examined more than 1,200 nursing homes purchased in recent years by large investment groups. The acquired homes scored worse on 12 of 14 indicators used by regulators to assess the well-being of long-term residents.

One of the phenomenons reported is that private homes are more likely to reduce staff headcount, particularly of their nursing professionals. Investor-owned facilities have an average of 20 residents per clinical registered nurse, compared to 13 for the national average.

The active adults who tend to be Topretirements.com visitors might not be in the market for a nursing or continuing care facility for themselves - yet. But they well might be shopping for one for a parent or relative. If you are looking, keep these considerations in mind:
- Ask for the current ratio of residents to clinical registered nurses (the national average is 13)
- Ask to see records of serious health deficiencies found by nursing home inspectors. Compare those to national averages at the Department of Health and Human Services.
- Find out who owns the facility. If the ownership scheme is tangled web, be cautious. The Times reports that some investors have retreated to very complex ownership schemes to protect themselves against patient lawsuits.
- Use Medicare’s “Nursing Home Compare” Tool. The primary purpose of this tool is to provide detailed information about the past performance of every Medicare and Medicaid certified nursing home in the country.
- Use Medline Plus to help find a good facility near you.
- Visit the facility and ask for references. There is no substitute for your instincts and observations.

For further study: How to Persuade Your Elderly Relative It Might Be Time to Move

Cooperatives Help Aging at Home Movement Grow

August 25 - More than 9 out of 10 people over 65 would prefer to stay in their own homes as they grow older, according to a survey by the AARP. The desire to live where they feel comfortable amidst familiar surroundings is powerful and understandable. Unfortunately, as medical needs increase and life skills like driving decline, it often becomes more and more difficult to continue living independently. Aging adults face more than their own frailties as well, because their adult children often pressure them to move to a retirement community or Continuing Care Retirement Center (CCRC).

More and more people, according to a recent New York Times article, are starting to form cooperatives with the goal of making it possible to age in place. Cooperatives, sometimes referred to as co-housing organizations, are springing up in Cambridge Mass., Palo Alto, Calif., Washington, D.C., and New Canaan, CT. Another form of them are so-called Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities, or NORCs. The organization in New Canaan is called Staying Put in New Canaan. Aging in place allows participants to live in mixed communities, rather than just with other elderly people.

Proponents of the cooperative movement say that small problems, such as inability to shop or minor health issues, sometimes lead to a premature decision to leave one’s comfortable surroundings for an independent living facility. Those in the cooperatives believe that with a modest level of support those disrupting moves could be postponed.

In the most common form associations are formed to provide cooperative services. Beacon Hill Village in Boston is considered to be a prototype. Individual members of that organization pay dues of about $580 per year, couples pay a bit more. In exchange they get pre-screened access to a variety of service providers they might have difficulty finding on their own, such as a home health aide. Sometimes members barter their services such as home repairs or computer skills to other members in exchange for a future ride to a medical appointment or the like.

In some communities these “villages’ are set up by existing social service organizations, in others they are formed by community residents. Successful aging at home associations result in NORCs, Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities, places where many retirees are settled without a developer or other outside source.

Links:
New York Times - Aging at Home with Dignity
How to Persuade Your Elderly Relative it Might Be Time

Heck No, We Won’t Go

Topretirements is gearing up to publish an expanded article for our “Tips and Picks” section on how to persuade aging parents that it is time to move to some type of retirement home. We are very interested in hearing “war stories” from our readers’ experiences in trying to persuade their relatives to move from their private homes to a facility where they can get the care they need (independent living, assisted living, retirement home, continuing care retirement community, or nursing home). Please send your comments to editor@topretirements.com; we will try to share as many as we can.

Along with many people we know, we have struggled unsuccessfully with this issue. It is extremely difficult to persuade the elderly that they need more care. The reasons why relatives and friends don’t want to move out of their homes are certainly understandable - loss of independence and privacy being 2 really good ones. Whatever the reason, it seems like the majority of older people refuse to move until it is too late. The most serious ramification of waiting too long is that a serious health event occurs. That usually means disqualification for admittance to the most attractive facilities, or admittance only at a much higher cost. There are many other negatives associated with waiting too long, which we will explore in the Tips and Picks article. Please send us your experiences, and keep checking on this site for the new article.

Update May 2007: Use this link to find the completed article on Helping Elders Move, and this one to discuss your own war stories on helping to manage elder moves