What is a "continuum of care"?

By Stan Mingus

In the senior housing industry "continuum of care" is a term used to describe the type of services that a facility may offer ranging from independent living to total care.

Perhaps these descriptions may help you to put this into perspective:

Independent Living means that residents are capable of taking care of themselves. Senior residential facilities that offer independent living may offer some meals, activities and transportation to make life easier, but residents are not dependent upon them.

Catered Living is a new term in our area this year. It provides 24-hour access to a skilled caregiver and a resident services coordinator who coordinate the unique needs of each participant in the program. The program was started to basically provide aid for a caregiver whose spouse needed care, but they wanted to continue to live together.

Assisted Living Care is designed for people who require a certain amount of services to be provided such as meal preparation, medication monitoring, laundry and personal care services and transportation; but they do not need the full-time care offered in a nursing home setting.

Skilled Nursing Care is the full-time care offered by nursing homes, where all of the residents' needs must be met by a skilled staff. Most skilled care facilities are now geared towards rehabilitation care, rather than custodial care, with the goal of preparing their residents for a lower level of care situation.

Subacute Care is another term just recently introduced to our area. This level of care is for the patient who is seriously ill, but medically stable, who still requires highly skilled nursing/rehabilitative care; and can receive this care in a nursing home setting instead of remaining in the hospital. One of the obvious benefits of this is that the costs associated with subacute care are lower than a recuperative stay in the hospital.

We add Alzheimer's Care to this list because it has it's own "continuum of care". In the early stages of Alzheimer's, a person may need to be placed in an Assisted Living program to help them with meals, transportation and supervision. There are now homes designed specifically to provide assisted care only for those in the early stages of Alzheimer's. As the disease progresses, however, full-time skilled care becomes necessary. This is being provided by many Skilled Care Facilities and, today, nursing facilities devoted solely to Alzheimer's care are being developed.

To this list we must also add Adult Day Care Service facilities. These are becoming important for the at-home caregiver who needs some respite from their duties, or for the caregiver who must also hold down a job while still providing care for a loved one. These facilities usually provide daytime activities and meals from before-work hours to after-work hours.

Within this continuum, all levels of senior care can be found. When looking for such facilities, one might be cautioned to look carefully, and don't be afraid to ask questions. In each community there are good resource people who can guide you in your selection of a senior housing facility. You can usually start your search for them at the Senior Information & Referral Service provided by the local Area Agency on Aging.