Assisted Living facilities are as close as your computer mouse, and most of the sites not only inspire confidence but confirm it. If you take a mouse’s tour through most of the Assisted Living facilities listed online, you will find many of the same elegant settings, pictures, and landscapes, along with comforting words and fonts chosen for their relaxing effect on the eye. But something else is present in the reputable websites—the definitions of care needs, and an online explanation of fees and services that is second only to that of the best online universities.

Virtually every good website for Assisted Living will ask precise and thorough definitions of the parameters of the care needed. It will ask about the mobility—and the range of mobility—of the family member. It will ask for assistance needed in daily living, and to what extent; it will ask regarding issues of incontinence. It will ask about cognitive impairments (Alzheimer’s, for example), diabetic and other health conditions, and it will ask for your own summative statements regarding the needs of the family member.

Then, any Assisted Living facility worth its salt will invite you to visit any of its sites—most of the best such facilities have several locations. This is the point you are going to go offline, but you knew that anyway, and you love your family member enough to get thorough about it.

The facility tours are thorough also—they invite questions, comments, puzzlements, and they will show you anything in the facility you wish to see. If you cannot think of questions, they will frequently bring them up themselves. They are, after all, in the business not only of offering assistance but in dispelling myths, as Assisted Living is still considered a “nursing home” existence by some.

They will also present you with the entire package they offer and its financial bottom line, and you get to decide if it’s a good match. They are, after all, answerable to government stringencies, and they’d better get it right.

If you’re looking for employment, you might also consider jobs in retirement homes to be close to your loved ones.

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