Adult Foster Care Home is New Home

An adult foster care home can be an ideal solution for an elderly family member. Mrs. R is a 93-year old woman who has lived in Beaverton, OR with her 70-year old son for several years. Her son “E” loves his mother and was a good caregiver for her, but at the same time he wanted to retire and be a snowbird part of the year. He was conflicted about what to do about his mother. She is a lovely woman who needs assistance showering and help in and out of a back brace in the morning and evening. She is also legally blind and needs help with medication administration. Her son felt uncomfortable helping his mother with her shower, so would ask his sister to come over and assist…

“E” contacted us and asked what would be good senior living options for his mother. We talked about assisted living and adult foster care. Mrs. R has a pleasant personality but is not very social around a lot of people, and since she can’t see well she does not participate in card games, board games, and the like. She feels more comfortable in a small setting. For this reason, we ruled out assisted living and decided to concentrate on adult foster care homes in the Beaverton area.

95 Year-Old with Alzheimer’s to Adult Foster Home

Mrs. M is a 95 year-old woman who was living in an independent living retirement community in Tigard, Oregon. She has Alzheimer’s disease and, other than occasional assistance from an in-home care agency, she was not taking care of her personal hygiene needs on a consistent basis. Because she was living in an independent living community, which does not employ caregiving staff, her medication was not being administered to her, and therefore she was taking it on an irregular basis. She was also becoming reclusive in her apartment and not participating in social activities or even mealtimes in the community dining room…

Mrs. M’s family lived close by and would assist her as much as possible, and take her to church on Sundays. However, her adult children are sons, and they felt uncomfortable with helping Mrs. M with her showering needs. As time progressed and it became clear that Mrs. M was having more and more difficulty in caring for herself, and also because of her reclusiveness, they contacted our agency for help in finding placement.

Letting your loved one with Mild Impaired Cognition settle in……

Martha a 90 year young, pleasantly spirited lady with Mild Impaired Cognition, and her son Bob, made the decision to move Martha to adult foster home.  Martha was having a few more falls, and the hope was, with a smaller setting in an AFH she would have better over sight.  The first morning after her move, I received a frantic call from her son Bob saying mom had to move, she wasn’t adapting to the new home, she was anxious and agitated.

Moving Into an Adult Foster Care Home Allows Wife to Go From Family Caregiver to Spouse Again

Mary’s husband John had early onset Alzheimer’s. Mary still worked full time so she hired caregivers to come a few hours each day to ensure he had meals and was safe while she was gone. When she got home from work she had to fix dinner, help him shower, clean the mess he made throughout the day, get his medications and meals ready for the next day, do laundry as he often had accidents. Mary heard him get up several times during the night which interrupted her sleep. Realistically she knew he was just going to get worse but she had hope that he would at least stabilize. He wasn’t improving, unfortunately he was definitely getting worse. Mary knew she couldn’t continue to work full time and worry all day about his safety. She couldn’t afford to pay for caregivers to be with him the whole time he was at work yet she couldn’t afford not to. Mary was exhausted emotionally and physically. She couldn’t do it anymore and turned to Right Fit Senior Living Solutions for help…

We met with both of them to determine their ideal situation. She wanted him to live in an adult foster care home in nearby Tualatin so she could visit him on her way home from work in Portland. She liked the idea of an adult foster care home as there would be four other seniors living with a private family who is very experienced with being caregivers and working with people with Alzheimer’s and other dementias. He would get a lot of personal attention in a quiet, calm and safe home. She liked that their food is all made from scratch and that they would manage his medications, do his laundry and help him shower.

Hospice Patient Moves to Adult Foster Home

Mr. V was an 87 year-old man with Parkinson’s dementia, heart failure, and general failure to thrive. He had been living in an assisted living community for several years, and used to be quite active, but his health was declining rapidly to the point where he was refusing to eat or drink. He would alternate between sleeping for hours on end, to being very agitated and trying to get up, despite being a considerable fall risk…

We found Mr. V a wonderful adult foster care home, where he received 24 hour care by an awake staff. Hospice followed him to his new home, and cared for him there. It was a much better-suited environment for him, and although the costs were still quite high with 24-hour care, it was much less expensive than having the round-the-clock in-home caregiver.

zeth@greatnessdigital.com September 16, 2014