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Myths and Realities of Long-Term Care
There are many myths about life in a nursing home or institution:
MYTH: Nursing homes exist to meet the needs of people who are very old and very "impaired," and a nursing home is the only place where their needs can be met.
REALITY: People of all ages with very complex needs are already living successfully in the community. With assistive technology, people monitor their own health and control their own environment. With home assistance, people get out of bed, dress, direct their meal preparation, and go to work. With scheduled reminders, appropriate alarms, and standard environmental aids such as electronic shutoff for stove and iron etc., people with mild dementia are living longer in their own homes, with a higher quality of life. Complex medical conditions can be monitored in the home environment. Another reality is that some people with very low needs are living in nursing homes.
MYTH: Life in a nursing home is safer than living at home.
REALITY: Read your newspaper! Reports of accidents, injury, death and scandal in nursing homes and other institutions are frequent.
MYTH: Nursing homes provide 24-hour care.
REALITY: In a nursing home, the most hands-on care any patient receives, on average, is less than 4 hours a day. The rest of the time? More than 20 hours of walls!
MYTH: If the state offers home services to everyone, people will "come out of the woodwork." This means that so many people will want services paid for that previously were provided by friends and family that the state won't have enough money to pay for it all.
REALITY: States offering more home and community-based services have not seen a large "woodwork" effect. The statistics do show that with the same amount of money, many more people can be served with home and community based services than in a nursing home.
MYTH: It's not safe for people with high needs to live at home.
REALITY: Technology (like lifeline emergency call buttons and community auto dial emergency numbers) has greatly increased the community safety net.
