How to Find Great Senior Housing: A Roadmap for Elders and Those Who Love Them (2nd edition)

Barbara Morris, author, Put Old on Hold, 2003
very easy to read and understand and at the same time . . .chock full of critically important information.


Reviewer's Choice, The Midwest Book Review, James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief,September 2002
. . .an especially recommended and invaluable instructional resource and reference for [those] needing. . to secure appropriate, affordable senior housing.


Katy Pruett, Host of Eye on the Internet, KRLD, Dallas/Fort Worth
The best thing. . .is that it provides a ton of detailed information you'd never think to ask or research.


Featured Reviews, the boox review, September 2002
. . .a first-rate guide . . .that will help seekers succeed in spite of roadblocks present all along the way.


Jacqueline Marcell, author
A wealth of valuable information for everyone from the family to the physician.


Richard Marshall, Texas Senior Law, November 2002
Wow! . . .a marvelous addition to the literature in this field. And the Appendices are a gold mine.


Book Description
When Alzheimer’s disease claimed her father, Phyllis Staff, Ph.D., an experimental psychologist, began a search for quality care. After 28 years diagnosing and solving problems for educational and Fortune 500 organizations, she assumed that this would be her easiest assignment ever. She was wrong. Her challenging search took years and included the systematic investigation of thousands of elder care properties. In How to Find great Senior Housing: A Roadmap for Elders and Those Who Love Them (Second Edition), she shares the step-by-step method for finding great care that grew out of her research. Sixteen worksheets and checklists guide readers through every phase. Appendices list names and telephone numbers of essential resources.


From the Publisher
In addition to the sixteen checklists and worksheets included in the text, How to Find Great Senior Housing includes Appendices designed to assist you after you select eldercare. Topics include: State Offices of Long-term Care Ombudsmen State Medicaid Offices Reduced Price or Free Pharmaceutical Programs Frequently Asked (Disease-Specific) Questions The book is fully indexed for easy access to information.


From the Author
Before my father's death from complications of Alzheimer's disease, I visited or stayed with him in almost every type of care imaginable. I know first-hand the pain and joys of eldercare. I wrote this book so that you will experience more joys and less pain during your journey.


About the Author
Phyllis Staff, Ph.D, a veteran psychologist is the daughter of a victim of Alzheimer's disease. When she needed care for her father, she developed an extensive research protocol designed to identify properties that provide high quality care and discriminate between them and properties that abuse or neglect elder residents. Her book details the methods she developed and identifies markers of quality care. Dr. Staff's career includes more than twenty-five years developing organizational improvement strategies for educational institutions and Fortune 500 corporations, experiences that proved invaluable in building a mthodology to find trustworthy elder care.


Excerpted from How to Find Great Senior Housing: A Roadmap for Elders and Those Who Love Them (2nd edition) by Phyllis Staff. Copyright © 2004. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Preface The crash sheared both wings off his airplane. He walked back to the airport. And that horrifying incident was only the first in a series that led to this book. We had known for at least three years that something was wrong. My father, usually kind and good-natured, had become a grouch! And his usual attention to his car had disappeared. But talking with him about what was wrong was futile. I learned, early on in the process, that finding a good retirement or nursing home is a demanding and, often, thankless task. I spent many fruitless hours searching for suitable care for my father, a victim of Alzheimer’s disease. One day I woke up. I realized that I should use my 30+ years as a research psychologist dealing with the problems of organizations to help me discover what quality of care residents in any particular home received. After developing a research tool, members of my organization, the best is yet.net, Inc., and I visited more than 100 retirement and nursing homes. Through the experience of gathering and analyzing objective data, I learned how to tell quality from the rest. I wrote How to Find Great Senior Housing to help elders and their family members find the best retirement community for their particular needs no matter where they live. The information you will find in this book comes from my own deep research and systematic study of data from thousands of retirement and nursing homes. To find a great elder care facility, you or a family member should visit the properties of interest personally. If you cannot arrange this, please send me an email at phyllis.staff@thebestisyet.net to learn how the best is yet.net, Inc. can do it for you. HOW TO USE THIS BOOK In these pages, you’ll learn to: · Discover the least restrictive level of long-term care that will meet your elder’s needs; · Find a retirement property offering a specific level of care; · Evaluate the quality of care properties actually provide; · Evaluate the staff; · Spot red flags that reveal a poor property. Armed with this information you'll avoid the properties where elder abuse is most likely to occur; · Recognize the signs that say "this is a good place to live;" and, · Chat with current residents about their experiences in a property in ways that will provide valuable information without making residents uncomfortable or uneasy. BOXED ITEMS Pay particular attention to items set aside in boxes. Our own research has shown that these items are especially important predictors of either positive (AWARD BONUS POINTS) or negative (RED FLAGS) quality of care. Even the poorest facility is likely to have some outstanding positive quality; similarly, even the best facility will have a negative feature. Thus, finding just a few positive or negative items for a particular property is not especially important to your choice. But, if you find four, five, six, or even more items of the same kind, either positive or negative, you’ve learned something important about that property. CHECKLISTS AND WORKSHEETS You’ll find Checklists and Worksheets at the ends of most chapters. Use these tools every time you call or visit a property. Worksheets and checklists will help you stay on target and speed you toward your goal. You may choose to score your Checklists based on answers you’ve received, or you may simply use them as aids so that you do not forget to ask important questions. Create a large folder to hold all the material that you'll generate and receive from retirement properties. File all materials in your folder as soon as you get them. You'll need to review them before making the final decision. GETTING THE MOST FROM THIS BOOK To get the most out of this book, first skim the entire book in order. If you skip around from chapter to chapter, you'll miss much information you need to understand the entire method. Once you have skimmed the whole book, you're ready to begin identifying the best property for your elder's needs. I have, throughout the book, listed the URLs (Universal Resource Locators) of Internet websites that will help you do the job in a hurry. To find a specific website, log on to the Internet, copy the exact URL into the address bar of your Internet browser (for example, Netscape or Internet Explorer), press "enter," and (most of the time) you're there. But what if you're not there? The Internet changes rapidly. Websites available when this book was written may no longer be online when you read it. If a particular web address (URL) no longer works, use a large search engine, such as YAHOO! ä or AltaVistaä, to find an alternative. SHOULD YOU PROVIDE PERSONAL INFORMATION? Certain locator and assessment websites require that you provide your name and address to use their services. Certain sites asking for this information act as marketing agents for major long-term care corporations. Their financial support comes from the commissions they earn when elders become residents of the corporation’s properties. They will send your name to long-term care properties or property owners. Soon after, you’ll find your mailbox stuffed with retirement property materials. If you want to preserve your personal privacy, avoid these sites. Most of the websites listed in this book do not require that you give personal information to use their services. However, sites such as New Lifestyles Online need your street address so they can mail you regional booklets. Even though they may share your personal information with long-term care companies, I have found the information they provide so valuable that it's worth a certain loss of privacy.


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