Assistance for Daily Living

The simple needs of daily life are often the single most difficult problem in arranging care for the aging. The links below provide comprehensive information on all aspects and degrees of assistance for daily life, as well as offering tools for assessing assistance providers.

AARP The largest public advocacy group for the aging in the country, with an international scope of concerns. The site is very large and the site's search engine is pretty much mandatory for finding everything connected to a specific subject. But a search on terms associated with assistance for daily living turned up literally hundreds of pages and documents on the site. A very rich source for information.

Massachusetts Long Term Care This website provides information on the varieties of long term care, the providers available, and the options for financing, usefully focussed on Massachusetts. The site is a collaboration of the Massachusetts Extended Care Federation (MECF) and the Home & Health Care Association of Massachusetts (HHCAM), two statewide organizations of health care providers. In making a decision about nursing home care, individuals may wish to consult the state and federal government comparison tools listed below.

Massachusetts Assisted Living Facilities Association In the form of pages addressing specific issues and questions, the website includes Massachusetts-based information on most aspects of assisted living and the options available. A particularly useful document is the Assisted Living Checklist, which summarizes in an organized (but noncontractual) fashion the service options that will be required of an institution. The site also features a list of Massachusetts residences, organized by region.

Nursing Home Compare A service of the Medicare website, the page says it most succinctly: "The primary purpose of this tool is to provide detailed information about the past performance of every Medicare and Medicaid certified nursing home in the country." The most comprehensive search and comparison tool out there, the site also includes links to information on nursing homes, as well as links to a variety of other search tools useful for those contemplating long term care for age-related reasons.

Survey Performance Tool for Nursing Homes A service of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, this search tool is similar to Nursing Home Compare, but confined to Massachusetts. The level of detail is not as great, nor is there the same degree of support information as is featured on the Medicare site, but the ratings are linked to state government inspections.