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Can a senior have an adult family member live with them at an Assisted Living facility in order to help with their care? And, if so, how does this affect the cost?

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Our library distributes a publication on senior housing which explains each kind of housing and services available from in home care to assisted living to nursing home care, and lists the facilities in this area comparing available services and costs.

Second source: Look for magazines such as Good Age for seniors in your area. They will have ads for senior housing near you. Check out (visit) those you find interesting. You may also want to check out home health aides that can come to your home for a few hours each day or to help you care for you mother. Twice a week for two hours to give bath, help with laundry and vacuum, etc can be a big help for you.

All senior housing that I know of requires that residents be at least 55.
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Assisted living sounds as if it is not an option. His only choice if ha wants to be there too is an apartment/independent living. It is an education for sure!
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People, Mike is asking about AL's only. Don't tell him about apts.
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It's a facility that provides for one person, not two.
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First, Medicaid does not "usually" pay for AL unless an agreement with Medicaid. The AL near me is one of them. You must have two years of money. Cost can be 5k to 7k a month depending on care needed. The higher level is for the dementia/Alzhiemers unit. After two years if there is no more money for care, medicaid takes over. My Aunt was in one facility that once she became a fall risk was transferred to longterm.

AL is just that, they assist. The residents should be pretty much able to take care of themselves except for bathing, meds, ect like mentioned previously. They usually have a doctor associated with them and an RN. Most are CNAs. A resident will be sent to the hospital if something they can't care for.
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For my late mom, her IL allowed for guests to stay in her apt no more than 10 sequential days a month and would be charged for guest meals and could be charged a guest activity fee (like $ 5.00 to go in the van with mom on the weekly shopping trip if there was roo m.) All tallied up onto next months bill.

Now we could & did hire an aide for a couple of months before mom moved to a NH to help with medication & keeping apt tidy. The facility gave me a list of names. Since mom was in IL this could happen. Not allowed in AL as all aides there had to be an employee of the facility. I assume this is a insurance & liability issue.

For AL (as well as IL, AL & NH all same place as this is a tiered facility), family could stay for a small daily fee in an apt set aside for family visits but had to request a reservation in advance. I think limited to 3days. There were folks who had reservations regularly for the apt too.

What can be done will be spelled out in the admissions contract.
If this is a CCRC (continuing care retirement community)please have someone else read the contract as well, as CCRC can be very restrictive as to what happens once a resident dies or is their needs get outside the care range of the CCRC.
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I visited an assisted living for my mom. Their rule was that if you need extra help, you had to hire an aide vetted by them for about 13 dollars an hour. I saw a resident and her aide in the cafe. She sat at a table with no food or drink. The aide looked painfully bored and completely consumed by whatever she was doing on her phone. She did not once attempt to engage the resident. So, if you should go that route, make sure you understand what you're getting, and check up on the person providing the care until you're confident that you have someone good.
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My parents started out in a housing of the elderly here in Massachusetts. Meaning they were living on there own without help except from me. A lot of people around them so in case there was a problem. My Dad went into a nursing home for rehab but ended up staying and passing away this past January. My mother a year ago had some problems and went into ALF which the cost was $6,000.00 per month. Included all meals, housekeeping, help with bathing, giving her meds. Rides to doctors. It was not covered by any insurance. She passed this past July. I did read that if a person was a veteran of WWII there was some assistance out there to help with ALF but not sure how long that would have taken. My mother was in the nursing home rehab first so I was able to get her into ALF a lot easier did not give her a choice. Good luck!
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You're not the only one to wonder if that would be possible - I investigated it myself, when things were getting pretty dicey at home but my mother still refused to consider long term care. The responses I got from two facilities were:

1. An outright no, on the grounds that I myself did not meet their age criteria and they would not allow under 55s to live in the retirement village (I was quite surprised at their inflexibility);

2. An offer of a two bedroomed apartment within an ALF, with memory unit as a further option for later. Events overtook us before I had time to digest the idea and weigh up pros and cons.

So: it depends on the service provider's imagination and initiative. But in general terms ALF means assistance from the service provider's professionally qualified staff rather than from enthusiastic amateurs like thee and me.
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Read "GladImHere's" comments. We had similar experience with an ALF, and quite frankly, the quality of care was not very good. They insisted we get a full time agency to work with mom (dad was fine). This is after they tried desperately to separate mom and dad (anniversary tomorrow - will have been married 59 years!).
I do not want to sound angry, but most of the experiences collected from other friends is that these facilities want to get you and your parents (quickly) into a more costly service option. We started at 4k/month and in 18th months were up to $20k, with aids. Once dad had a cut on his leg, that was bleeding, and the agency aid could not find a band-aid. The head nurse at the ALF told her "they are not our problem any more, you figure it out!" I was already starting to research other facilities (this one looked lovely from the inside and out) when this happened.

We now have mom and dad at an independent care facility at $3,500/mo plus the cost of full time aids which I've hired on my own. This took a lot of time, research and background investigations. That said, it was all worth the time and effort (yes I work full time too), and they are both happy, healthy and doing much better than they were at the ALF facility.

Good luck!
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Another idea I had just as I had already posted. Perhaps "Independent Living" is a better fit because then another person could help with your care.
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Check with the facility you are interested in and ask what the additional cost would be. Assisted living "assists" by giving meds, getting you to the dining room, having activities and making sure you are checked on daily. I am pretty sure an additional person living with you would double the cost, but again, check how much the facility would charge to have someone living with you.
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When I was looking for assisted living for my husband who has a neurological disorder, I was directed to a couple of memory care facilities. At one of these, the marketing person made a point of mentioning they had a number of unimpaired spouses living there with their mates. So, it happens. Different facilities have different policies, so you have to visit and ask questions. Another possibility is for both to move into an independent living facility and have extra help come in for the one who needs it. I know two couples who have done it that way. I have no idea whether the nature of the relationship matters to them.
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We considered a two bedroom for my mom and her hubby and hiring an agency caregiver to stay with them in the second bedroom. We did not consider the caregiver to be a family member. While it would have been possible at some of the facilities we considered it was cost prohibitive. The rate at one facility would have been about $6,000.00 a month then additional fees for level of care for both of them and add the cost of a 24/7caregiver at about twelve thousand a month. It became very expensive very quickly.

Perhaps look at a senior condo complex rather than assisted living. These places usually will accept a small percentage of residents that are over 50 or 55. So presumably a child caregiver could share an apartment with a parent. Many of these places are for purchase, rather than a rental basis. Services normally available in assisted living are available all for additional fee, but very accessible because of the demographics of these sorts of residence.

Do you have any health concerns making assisted living necessary for you? What sort of assistance does your parent need help with? Why would you consider assisted for yourself? Do you work through the day and want care for parent when you are gone? It would be an interesting concept maybe a new sort of facility that allows family members to be the caregivers with oversight by professional staff thus reducing the number of employees necessary and lowering costs. I sure would not want to be the family caregiver is this sort of living situation! It seems you would have to do a good job of establishing boundaries so you are not helping everyone. After my four years of caregiving that ended just three months ago, the last place I would consider living would be any type of senior facility! Maybe an active adult over 55 community.
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Most ALF's offer a level of care type of service. The lowest level might be just assistance with meds, while the highest could be mobility, feeding, bathing, toileting, etc. However, if you are also dealing with any sort of dementia, I have found that most ALF's are set up to handle physical disabilities rather than dementia specific. It has to do with the specific licensing each ALF has. We learned this the hard way when we chose a lovely ALF who was not able to deal with any demential behavior. We wound up having to move Mom to a facility with in 3 months of being there. That ALF would allow an aide which we would pay for separately. However, we found that to be a waste of funds because the ALF was supposed to be providing care, giving meds, providing meals, laundry services, etc. While we could stay overnight in Mom's apartment for visits, we could not stay there on an ongoing basis.
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It the facility that does the assisting, not family members.
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My dad is independent living and if I moved in with him, I would have to pay a fee to live there too same as him. You can't live in a facility for free as a caregiver, family member.
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Assisted Living is not regulated by federal law, but by each state. Here's a link for AL in my state of NC. It says that AL is for seniors or disabled people who need assistance with daily life, such as medication management, meals, supervision, bathing, transportation, etc. According to this, a family member who was not in need, would not be allowed in AL, but I would question if they could live in an Independent Living apt. I don't know much about IL. Maybe others here do.

assistedlivingfacilities/resources/what-is-assisted-living-/
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