New Resource For Families Seeking Quality Care For Aging Parents

Your 83-year old widowed mother can no longer live at home and must move to a care facility. But she is in Florida, and you live in California. What do you do?

Rather than a frantic search for a suitable assisted living or nursing home in a strange city, you can now access a listing of every licensed senior care facility in the western United States and Florida. Available at no cost to consumers, the database is on: www.theseniorcareguide.com

"Our web site is also an easy-to-use guide to help families decide when it's time for an elder to move and how to determine the level of service and the type of facility that is best for their parent or relative," explained Monika Gartner, CEO/President, Care Service Options, Inc., developer of the new database.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, about 60 percent of individuals over age 65 will need some type of long-term care services at some point, and more than 40 per cent of those seniors will require nursing home care.

"It's harder today to care for an elderly person at home than in years past," said Simon Paquette, a licensed clinical social worker in Vancouver, Washington. "One reason is that people are living longer, often with multiple chronic diseases, that require sophisticated and specialized care that is beyond the capabilities of the typical family."

Paquette said increasingly families are using their internet skills to research senior facilities that meet all the needs -- social, medical, emotional and financial -- of their aging parent or relative.

"Two important features of The Senior Care Guide web site database are that we do not charge a facility to be listed nor are we connected in any way with ownership or management of senior care facilities," Gartner said. "That assures consumers access to the complete list of every licensed senior facility in each state in our database, with the knowledge we are not promoting or omitting any one facility."