Living in a Nursing Home

Life in a nursing home is not what you may think it is. I have never lived in one, but I did work as a nurse's aide helping senior citizen residents with a host of daily tasks. Nursing homes of the past are gone, and these newer nursing homes have many benefits as well as friendly faces.

Nursing homes are for those senior citizens and other people who need medical help but are not ill enough to be in a hospital. In a nursing home, you will find a host of people from residents who live there to countless medical staff members and during the day and evening; you see plenty of visitors as well.

There are senior citizen residents who have a wide range of health problems such as dementia, to very bad sugar, to mental retardation, lung disease, as well as every other medical condition you can think of who live in a nursing home.

Some senior citizen residents need total care to move, and some need very little help but need to live in a nursing home where there is trained medical staff to help them at any given time. Those senior citizen residents that need total care do tend to take up most of the staff members time, as they are medically needy.

Total care senior citizen residents, need to be fed and changed much as a baby does. We dress them, comb their hair, brush their teeth, and bathe them as well. Sometimes they have the ability to talk to use, but most of the time they have lost the ability to speak because of their illnesses.

Moderate care senior citizen residents need minimal help; they need help walking to the bathroom, using the bathroom or need help getting into a wheel chair. They usually are coherent and love to join in the many activities that are in nursing homes.

Minimal care senior citizen residents need only very little help, they may need help opening the toothpaste or getting clothing out of a lower drawer. They live in the nursing home because they require nursing staff for a variety of health reasons.