Important Ratios

It seems to me that, in Eldercare, there are certain ratios which are important. And a couple that are completetly meaningless, but interesting.

Important Ratio:

People ask about choosing care facilities, how do you know which Seniors Housing is good, what do you have to do to get good care,etc. Besides reading my book (Nurisng Homes: The Family's Journey --www.nursinghomesbook.com), one thing has stood out for me.

The greater the dementia, the more monitoring the family needs to do.

Simply, the less people can speak for themselves, makes problems known, etc., the more their caregivers are going to have to be watching out for them.


Important Ratio:

I often see in guides to nursing homes say that, when you are figuring out which is good and which isn't, you need to ask about the ratio of staff to resident. I think that is true, but--

You need to ask
--the number of nurses to residents
--the number of care aides to residents

But as important, it seems to me, and this is not what is highlighted, you need to ask about the number of recreation staff to residents. If you don't have a good ratio, and a home is not guided on principles of all staff doing many roles ( for instance care aides also being recreation workers), then the amount of stimulation available is going to be impacted.

Unimportant Ratio:

Weight to Age

Often I will hear in a care conference that a person is a certain age, and a certain weight. It seems to me that when their weight goes lower than their age, we're in trouble. Like, if you are 90 years old , but only weigh 88 pounds, that doesn't seem good. 85 years old, but weight 80 pounds, even worse.

Totally unscientific. Not useful for measuring anything valid. But still something to think about, if you have nothing better to do today.