An Adult Family Home has a very specific, defined meaning in Washington State. There are a number of laws and procedures around the term, and those laws are there to protect the consumer, and create a level playing field for all those providers who wish to offer such services within the state of Washington. Hows does this work? When you put your organization out to offer an Adult Family Home, you must meet certain criteria. People know, precisely because of these laws, what to expect in any Adult Family Home.

A “retirement home” can be just about anything. You can outfit your back yard shed with a few fixtures and proclaim it to be a place for people to retire. And you may well retire there after a hard day’s work, but it’s a far cry from a retirement home. And it doesn’t fit the criteria for an Adult Family Home, simply because the state of Washington mandates a number of specific characteristics an Adult Family Home must meet to operate withing the law.

The single most important aspect of an Adult Family Home in the state of Washington is the state mandated maximum number of residents. That number is six, and it means no single Adult Family Home residence may go over that number. It does make complete sense, however, because to be a home, you can’t have two hundred residents milling about.

The short answer is, when they know they are ready, but there are a lot of details that will help make the transition a happy one, and because timing is so important, this question is critical. Let’s look into what it means to move into – and live in – an Adult Family Home for the long term:

The short answer is no, dementia will not prevent your loved one from living at an Adult Family Home in the Seattle area or anywhere in Washington State for that matter. Here’s why.

Every patient under memory care is unique, and for just that reason, a personal and intimate knowledge of each individual under care is essential. This is what makes a residence that supports memory care patients more effective when they have a high care-giver-to-resident ratio. In an Adult Family Home in the state of Washington, the maximum number of residents allowed in a business that operates as an Adult Family Home can only have a maximum of six individual residents.

An at-home caregiver, if you can afford the full-time costs of it, has some distinct advantages. The sheer dedication of a caregiver’s time to one person means they have the time to understand and support that person from a physical, nutritional, medical and security point of view. They can be selected on a one to one basis, and can be understood and supported themselves while they in turn support your loved one.

The short answer is – at least with respect to Adult Family Homes – it’s quite like living at home. It’s a little pricier to live in an Adult Family Home, but there are distinct advantages an Adult Family Home has over a nursing home. Top of my list is, the upper limit on number of residents in an Adult Family Home in the state of Washington.