Are all assisted living facilities depressing or is it just my perspective?

I think it’s your attitude to put it bluntly., which may very well have an effect on how well your father does . It’s not “infantilizing “, studies have PROVEN the elderly, especially those with dementia, do better and stay healthy longer when they are involved in activities that keep their minds active and they have socialization.
Check for a place that has independent and assisted living, ideally that can transition into a (separate but located in the same complex ) memory care . Their residents will probably be more independent. And he won’t have to move when his condition worsens ( our newbie mistake was the first was strictly independent living) Talk to the staff and see what their philosophy is. Who comes first the resident or the staff? I don’t know where you live but we managed to find two very nice places for my mother. We visited every single one in the area so you need to do your homework. We chose the places with the most homelike atmosphere and the most caring staff. Check resident to staff ratio. It should be much higher than legal requirements. Some areas grade facilities or have online reviews although one I noticed had 90% of reviews by staff so check for actual family and resident reviews. It was recommended by the hospital for rehab and was one of the worst imo, very poor communication with family even though it was obvious my mother was hallucinating and out of it. Most newer facilities in my area are set up as apartments with your own furniture so you have a lot of say on how pleasant it is.

There are a lot of different Assisted Living facilities even within the same state. I have worked for 3, all in same state. All were decent facilities and, as some say ,more hotel like than nursing home in style Most residents fairly happy, although there are always a few chronically unhappy people.
Activities for residents vary with their abilities and tastes. As Certified Activity Director, I had to provide residents with a variety of choices. Bingo was the most universally favorite activity.(I don't like it, but most residents do). If you look in most communities, there are a lot of Bingo games available to the non-institutionalized! Must be something that appeals to people! All-in-all, I'd say AL pretty nice. But costly. Where I live 3K/monthly on low end. Some AL upward from 6K to over 10K!

We have some wonderful assisted living facilities where I live. And more being built all the time. I have found a great place for my dad but he refuses to "move to one of those nursing homes" which is not at all what this place is. They even have a bus that would take him to HIS church on Sunday (right up the street!). Church is the highlight of his week. 24/7 coffee, pastries in the morning (he loves to do that at the senior center), day trips, excellent food and many other activities which he may or may not enjoy. When I saw the list, I asked where I could sign up! Fitness room with bands (no weights!), chairs, and fitness balls for activity. He lives in his dark dreary house with care that comes in. Survives on chocolate milk and frozen meals because he is too cheap to buy better food. His house is so depressing and this assisted living place is really nice. Busy but not too busy. Even with buy-up care, it is cheaper than what we are paying to keep him in his house with in-home care. The facilities are not all alike. Keep looking!

I took my mom around to several places around The Fort Lauderdale area we settled on five star senior living place that’s called quart of palm Aire we found it not depressing at all look like a big hotel and she loves it. There are a lot of beautiful ones out there just keep looking the three or

No they are not all depressing. Some are delightful. Go by your instinct. If you find it depressing, so will your father. High price is no guarantee either.

Keep looking! It may be that you are finding places that mix the folks with behavioral issues and dementia into the general population. Some may be sedated a bit to make it easier to live with others.

My Gram lived in a place that had all 3 levels - independent living, assisted living, and total care on the same campus. She had a nice mini apartment for most of her life there, a beautiful dining room/activity room, and she worked as a receptionist in one of the buildings. There are nice places out there!

Unfortunately, it comes down to your budget. Some places are better than others but unless you’ve got the money to pay for it you’re not going to get delightful chef inspired meals, beautiful atriums and those other features. My husband has vascular dementia. He is still fairly sharp but needs to be in AL due to hemiplegia and Parkinsonism. The place I chose is clean and safe and the staff are wonderful but the activities are definitely on the low budget end - puzzles, bingo, tv. Sadly, you get what you can pay for. I chose the place where the staff were most cheerful, kind and competent. He is an introvert and they really go out of their way to find ways to engage him.

I have noticed that the “personality” of my mom’s Assisted Living shifts every once in awhile depending on the current residents. There have been times it’s lively with loud raucous laughter. There have been times it’s depressing and somber. As far as activities, your dad doesn’t have to attend. He will have a choice.

I think a lot of it hinges on attitude and expectations and where you care recipient was in their previous life - just downsizing from a single family home to a normal apartment complex can look pretty depressing.... long halls with dim lighting, cramped quarters (no apartment feels spacious compared to a whole house), unfamiliar neighbours and neighbourhood, no yard... The more basic and institutional the facility the greater the culture shock is apt to be, there will be an adjustment period in even the best of facilities.

Mjlarkan also makes a valid point about how the character of a place can change depending on the people living there. I have seen that changes in staff can have a huge effect as well, some people are more capable than others and spend time away from work learning and planning, some go above and beyond while others just put in their 8 hours and hurry out the door.

Hi, it sounds normal for ALF to me. The activities help mental & physical needs, the grumpiness is kinda typical for elderly. I don't know what you expected. (Some days are better than what you saw, cuz the residents may have be ill or in pain on the day you visited). It may not be depressing to your dad, cuz he will have friends his own age to play cards with or hit on the old ladies!
Just make sure you like the nurses & aides, cuz they're the ones who will spend the most time looking after your dad. But remember, residents do die there, (natural causes of age)

It's a tough situation. My question, can you both put in an assisted living facility and also keep involved in programs outside the facility for seniors? I live in W. Los Angeles and there is a great senior facility, that many seniors go to for their fun activities & social environment. Is it possible to have the seniors transported to these type of facilities a couple of days a week, to be involved and participate in what they have to offer? If so, would that work for your father? Good luck with this.

They can be. These facilities tend to start out with a higher percentage of younger residents and over time, the population ages. Also, the high cost of assisted living, encourages people to wait until they are much older and infirmed. I would look for a newer facility if at all possible.

Telling it like it is. I've have home caregivers who have worked facilities and hospice relay worse horrors of the institutions. You speak the truth for so many. Truly this is a passage that is difficult, expensive, heart wrenching and depleting. The best we can do is the best we can do. There are some very sage souls in this group... so we all have company in our isolation.

My mother n law had dementia and lung cancer and we had to put her in a nursing home that handled end of life care. Needless to say it was 16,000 a month. Yup you read that right. 16,000 a month. Horrible facility. My brothers law got her out of there and brought her home to their house for the remainder of her life. She only lived 2 more weeks because she was at the end of life. But she was surrounded by family when she died.

There are some beautiful AL facilities, but the key in your case is that you are trying to find one "in line with Dad's finances or SSA/VA benefits." Benefits are never going to meet AL expenses. Nicer AL facilities are going to require additional money from patient or family. If none of you in the family is able or willing to supplement your father's benefits, your choices are limited.

You see what you want to see.

Remember some patients are not in the state of mind he is, and become aggressive towards staff, paranoid and violent, So mood elevators are used to keep them calm. Mine was in a stunning facility and acquired MRSA and went septic after they discharged him, but it had good food, window views, ponds and fountains but the care was sub par. The ones he’s at now is drab with terrible food and depressing BUT his therapy is stellar and drs and nurses know each patient. So do you want quality amenities or quality care? You can decorate his area and bring in nicer tv for him. Make your decision based on his care not how fancy the place is. It may be best he sticks to himself but suggest he have dinner in the dining area for change of scenery? Maybe a smidge of social interaction with others who want to play cards or chess is good? Mine won’t even walk up the hall to a small tv sitting room with coffee, so I hit Barnes and Nobles and he’s very much loving his crossword and word search books I got him plus it keeps his mind engaged. Make sure he’s got his favorite blanket, daily newspaper etc. Make the best environment you can for him and remind him how fortunate he is that he’s not like the others. Forcing him to see people down the halls IS DEPRESSING. Some of them are entertained with a simple cell phone with no service but it’s an outlet for that patient. Each patient has different needs, if they don’t keep them calm (which sometimes looks like zombies) he would otherwise hear them throwing things, cursing the staff, and subsequently being restrained. Create an atmosphere for him and read reviews on the places. Many elders have been dumped off and family doesn’t care or it’s gotten to be too much on them, so those patients are depressed and bitter and some just get crotchety in their old age. Don’t gauge the place by the patients drooling in the halls, but the staff and if you can make him happy in his own area, then he’ll be fine.

I found in my neighborhood a house converted to assisted living. It has a good reputation and doesn't look like an institution. The residents can sit on the front porch and watch children walk home from school, people walking their dogs, and most importantly the trees in the breeze. Many times when I visit though I see the ladies parked in front of an absolutely dumb tv show. Even the one lady who has a totally sound mind is sitting there watching garbage. Other times the staff is playing scrabble with one person and the others are scattered about sleeping in chairs. The lady with a sound mind often stays in her room with adult coloring books and magazines. She's grouchy and intelligent. The others are not up to her level of conversation and she loves to rile them by saying things like someone should shoot the squirrels. For my mom this place is the best I could find that she would think of as her home, but for the lady with a sound mind, I wonder. Your dad might like the activities and there might be more people in those places you visited who could converse with him than what I've witnessed at my mom's assisted living. Good luck with your hunt.

SZHNJ1023;

Start with alleviating some of your stress/running around. You say "Now I pitch in with shopping, bill paying, running errands, but it's difficult as he does not live around the corner from me..." While working, this will take a toll on you!

* Have his bills sent to you (or a PO Box.) Most places will change billing address without providing any kind of POA. They don't care where the bills go, so long as they get paid!
* Hopefully you have POA so you can access his assets. Technically if you are using his SS (only source of income) you should apply to be his rep payee. It requires making an appointment with a local SS office and filing and reporting yearly how the funds are used (no charge to do this and funds are used only for his benefit.) Once approved, they send the first payment as a check to you - you will need to set up a special rep payee account for that which only you can access and then can request electronic deposits. From there, you can set up all the accounts to be paid and when the bills arrive, schedule payments from the bill payer system. This is nice because you only have to set them up once and then just schedule payments - no more running to PO for stamps!
* For shopping and errands, try to consolidate them as best you can. There will always be times when an additional trip out is needed, but if you plan ahead, it saves time and gas money! I do this for myself, whenever possible.

The simple answer to your primary question is no, they are not all the same. There are those for profit, non-profit, VA, etc. Accommodations and services as well as cost and the residents can vary considerably and certainly will from one area of the country to another, sometimes even within a state. His limited income is likely limiting the choices, but although "The law firm recommended 3 that would be in line with dad's finances of SSA/VA benefits.", you can look around to see if there are others. As many have indicated, there are nice places and there are crappy ones. You might even want to recheck the ones you did already, as maybe it was an "off" day. Hopefully you know how much the SS/VA total is, so that you can check with prices on other places. The ones they suggested might have some kickback...

Mom's place is a combination IL/AL/MC and one has to go through the reception/dining areas to get to the elevator to MC. I have met and chatted with many residents who are from AL and/or IL. Most are quite pleasant and seem relatively happy. Most in the MC are also relatively happy (some who have regressed a lot may not seem to be, but there's a number of fairly cheerful people in her area!)

(TBC...)

Continued from last post:

Check out https://dailycaring.com/senior-housing-options-overview/ for the various options in "senior" living.

The ones you say are "...way out of budget. $135K entrance fee; $8K/month..." are 'Continuing Care Retirement Community' residences. The AL places mom used to check out in her area were mostly this type. I often wondered why the big up front cost when none of it is used for the huge monthly fee! I still don't know what they do with that money, but would NEVER consider one of them. Sure, they plan to keep you to the end (no need to move facility when moving to MC and/or NH), but still!!! Many ALs has a MC wing, so that eliminates moving to a new facility.

Regular AL should not have that kind of fee, just a monthly fee. They may require a deposit, it varies from one place to another. The costs vary as do the services included. We looked into 3 places. One was a no go from the first viewing. The first place we looked at was newly opened and nice, but quite a bit more expensive and farther for me to travel to (close to YB's place, but he is/was working still and I handle/manage most everything, so between cost and convenience for me, I was not in favor of that place.) The place we decided on is about 10-15 minutes for me and after 2.5+ years is STILL less per month (~8K) than that first place was (that also was the cost of a shared space at that time, likely more $ now, 2 BR with shared bath, no way mom would like that!) The place we selected wasn't even open yet (old facility was torn down and rebuilt), so we couldn't "view" it, but we're happy with the place. OB is in the south and looked at a place there (ours is non-profit, his was for profit) and he questioned why so expensive here when his was only 3k/m for MC. I looked into it - that was the base price only and everything else was ala carte (meals, laundry, cleaning, etc.), plus the reviews I read were pretty negative.

Being in NJ, I suspect your AL costs will be a bit more than here in the NE (one web site shows it to be about $400/m more.) Some people prefer the Residential Care Homes, smaller home-like places which they say are sometimes less expensive than traditional ALs. I suspect facilities that have IL, AL and MC are subsidized a bit by having the levels of care in one place. VA facilities may be more like NHs, thus maybe not so homey or hotel-like, but should be less expensive.

If his income is limited and he has no assets, is it possible for him to qualify for Medicaid and have in-home services instead of moving (I have read this is an option, staying in the home and getting care rather than going to a Medicaid facility.) Is he a renter or does he own his own place? If he owns a home and can sell it, the proceeds can be used to private pay until the funds are used up, then he might qualify for Medicaid (choose the place wisely then, so to make the transition easier.)

If it has to be a facility, I would choose between AL and Residential Care home.

Check this site:

https://www.assistedlivingfacilities.org/directory/nj/

This page shows average cost of AL for the surrounding states.

I plugged in zip for your location, selected "Standard" and Continue. While this brings you to a page to request help, don't enter anything! Below that is a link to show you the facilities. Click that link and it lists 100 places within 12 miles. I would start by checking the web sites and calling before visiting 100 places! Eliminate those that are too expensive right away! Find the ones he might be able to afford and check the website carefully. Take notes, call and ask many questions, THEN narrow it down and visit some of the places.

PS - Even before checking/clicking the places listed, they each have a list of services - those in green are available and I see some Medicaid ones.
PPS It appears this site is geared to helping you find a place - I wouldn't enter any info into the panels offered, just check what is offered, check the places.

If the OPs dad is NJ too then AL is probably not an option because AL there is self pay. For 2 years if I recall correctly. But maybe moving to NY would help?

Have you asked your Dad to be a part of choosing an A.L.F? He may do better in a small family facility instead of a large one. There are waiting lists for many of the good facilities. ( I've worked in the activities dept. in several facilities. They usually have a variety of activities at various levels of skill offered for anyone who wishes to attend. No one can force your Dad to join any game or activity. Fyi there are memory care groups for those with Alzheimer's, Dementia, Developmental disabilities or stroke victims. They are not playing silly baby games, but are actually participating in therapeutic activities geared for them. Most facilities offer fun outings for more active residents. I used to take them to casinos, lake cruises, plays, restaurants, concerts, farmers markets, shopping, and much more.) If your dad is an introvert he can say no to anything he doesn't want to do. He has legal rights to choose what he wants to do.)

Oh boy. I understand completely. My dad worked for the Chrysler Missile division of NASA. He had grown weak because of COPD. He needed help with meals and in the shower. I'm his daughter and he refused to let me help. I understand. I would feel terribly embarrassed if my son had to help. But to answer your question, yes. I hated him being there. He had no deminta. He read the paper every day. He knew every person in the presidential cabinet. He had no one to talk to till I got there. My dad was a WWII vet. This is best they have to offer those of the greatest generation. I wish I had an answer. We need to do better.

It's always a Difficult Decision. I'm a physician myself. I'm Late Middle-age and Single. (Guess I'm a Cynical Grouch.) I have no siblings, either. When my Late Father begged me to move back here to care for him, I did so. But, then-I sort of bulldozed him into going into AL-after almost two years of caregiving. He was Frail-but walking and talking (he did have falls.) Actually-it was a floor of AL with more care (a little like a NH.) He went willingly so I could Get a Life. I visited him every day-our house isn't too far away. I let Hospice in the picture towards the End, because I needed to for him to have bedrails (considered restraint.) He lasted about two months from when he went in-and, it wasn't Cheap. With Hospice, they can't normally go to he Hospital. Wish I'd cancelled it when he got sick. I guess I could have just hired a full-time caregiver here at home. It's been several years, and I feel Guilty and Alone. My Mother, BTW, Died of Cancer in her Fifties, many years ago.

There are many independent living facilities that allow the occupant to have someone come in and provide help with bathing, dressing or medications. My husband, who had vascular dementia, and I lived in one such facility until he died of stroke. They also had, for a fee, physical therapy. The van that took people to various activities--movies, lunch out, concerts, etc., had wheelchair access. The reason we were there was that I wanted to be able to travel and know that he would not starve--but I enjoyed the facility and the people that I didn't move out for 3 years after he died--and then only because of the cost. I still visit during Happy Hour several times a year and may go back once I have seen all of the world I want to see.

Well....my mom is now in her FOURTH one since I got her, and I have found that some of the reasons I have had to change her out is not her fault.  Some of them are.  She is a manipulator.  I told her on this last none that if it went South, it was on HER because she chose it.  She has been there all of 6 weeks now, and she hates it.  Sorry!

What makes it "depressing" is that you know this is the last stop for your loved one, and there are a lot of emotions involved. Some residents are more with it than others. I visited 13 facilities in a three-county area and some have a better vibe than others. I went with my gut and narrowed it down to two. Not sure how, but mom qualified for AL, which was more like a hotel. My mom had significant physical problems along with advanced dementia, so she was unable to take advantage of the many activities offered. She ended up in the attached SNF within 5 months. I have to admit, it was tough to visit her in either place. Now that she's gone, however, I am proud of the thorough research I conducted and the facility I selected. It's just one of the parts of life you suffer through and do the best you can.

No, they are not. They are what a person makes of them.

My ex is in an AL facility in Omak WA. It is great. He has been there over 3 years. His money gave out at about 2.5 years. Because he had been private pay for 2 years he keeps his room. I like the place. My late Aunt in Dallas TX. was in a great place too. I would call her and she would say "Can I call you back? We are playing poker, bingo, etc. Both places smell good, the decor is better than my house. They have/had the equivalent of a studio apt. Both places have alcoves with books and jigsaw puzzles.

My oh my, you hit the nail on the head! I’ve been to several. Never liked what I seen going on. I’ve seen heartbreaking things. They are understaffed, untrained and uncaring!!!! Oh yes I know there are one or two thrown in that do care. But they can’t do it all.. I’ve been there at all different times, all night, all day. Had to remind the staff that hey my father is here and you haven’t checked him for 3 1/2 hours now... As she puts her phone away!!!
But everyone of the places were shameful. My father was in a so called Dementia Care facility. Some of the staff never heard of dementia let alone be trained. And he paid out pocket for his little awful, depressing room!!!!
Just wanted to add that I would never Have placed him there. Wanted to keep him in his home and take care of him. My sister had POA. Put him there while I was at work. Then threw the key away. Sorry to say he fell three times that I know. Broke his neck in three places, told them but no incident report was done. Had surgery and died in that horrid place. Begged to take him home and she said No.
Prayers and blessings to you in your decisions.