A Caregiver's Guide to Retirement Homes

The rapidly expanding eldercare industry means more - and tougher - choices for family members.

- ERIN PRATER

AMERICA's population is graying, as they say. And the retirement home industry is booming as a result, is expected to grow nearly 70% by 2030. Meanwhile, nearly a fifth of Americans provide care for an adult, according to the AARP. And more than half of adults ages 50 to 80 provide care for someone 65 or older, according to the University of Michigan's 2022 National Poll on Healthy Aging.

For many adult caregivers - especially working ones - something will eventually have to give. Psychologist Allison Applebaum, Ph.D., knows this all too well. The author of the forthcoming book Stand by Me, Applebaum cared for her aging father-legendary composer Stanley Applebaum, whose many memorable musical feats included arranging strings on the 1961 Ben E. King hit "Stand by Me." She is also the director of the Caregivers Clinic at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.

While the elder Applebaum expressed his desire to be cared for at home, it wasn't always possible. He began experiencing signs of heart and kidney failure in his late eighties and ping-ponged between hospitals and nursing homes for eight months. The first time the musical savant needed nursing home placement, the revelation blindsided his family.

"Balancing paid employment and caregiving was incredibly difficult," Allison Applebaum says, adding that it was "the hardest thing I've done" and that caring for her father, who died in 2019, was "really a full-time job."

She was far from alone in her plight. Some caregivers will inevitably need to place Mom or Dad in a home and for those who do, the decision can be daunting.

A continuum of care

For those faced with such a choice, let's start with the basics: What's the difference between a retirement home and a nursing home?