I Ran Nursing Homes for 31 Years — If You Can't Live Alone, Try These 6 Things BEFORE You Move In

If you tell me you can't live alone anymore, I would not send you to one of my old nursing homes. Not first. "Can't live alone" is almost never one problem. It's a fall, or meals, or bathing, or pills, or the long quiet afternoons, and each of those has a fix that isn't a bed in a building like mine. After 31 years running nursing homes and assisted living, Juana Higgs walks you through six things to try, in the order she'd try them, and tells you plainly when a nursing home is the right answer. In this video: 1. Make the house itself safe (grab bars, rugs, lighting, balance) 2. Medicare home health, and what it will not pay for 3. PACE, the program almost nobody mentions 4. An adult day program 5. A Medicaid waiver that pays for help at home 6. Changing who lives under your roof: a housemate or an accessory dwelling unit Have you or someone you love ever waited on a list for help at home? Tell me in the comments how long it took. If you want to stay in charge of your own care for as long as you possibly can, subscribe to this channel. If you need hands-on care around the clock, or you have dementia and have started to wander, a good nursing home may be the safest place you can be. But before that day, call the Eldercare Locator at 1-800-677-1116 and ask for your Area Agency on Aging. Whoever picks up that phone isn't watching a census board. #nursinghome #aginginplace #seniorcare