DANVILLE — A number of health issues are driving younger and younger patients to receive care at nursing homes.
Nursing homes, both nationally and statewide, are seeing the ages of patients descend from the traditional 65-plus to the 40s and 50s. In the past, situations such as a younger person involved in a vehicle accident would be a reason to seek nursing home care.
Colonial Manor Nursing Home Administrator Mark Black said there are certain health problems happening more now that wouldn’t have been an issue years ago.
“Younger people are far more obese than they were 50 years ago,” he said. “With dietary issues you get more onsets of diabetes that are difficult to manage.”
Joan Darr, administrator at Vermilion Manor Nursing Home, said the county-owned facility also is seeing people who have dealt with problems with alcohol abuse and, in some cases, drug abuse.
“Those days for them are over, but the medical problems exist,” she said. “We see problems with their liver or kidneys. We have a lot of residents on dialysis.”
According to statistics from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the number of under-65 nursing home residents has risen, jumping about 22 percent in the last eight years to 203,000 people. That equals out to about one in seven residents being under retirement age.
According to Darr, many of the younger patients receive treatment on a short-term basis, needing more intense care — such as tube feedings or an IV — than a friend or family member can provide at home.
As far as health conditions are concerned, obesity was the biggest factor.
“It was really when the bariatric conversation was taking place in the hospital,” Darr said. “Then we would get these calls about if we could accommodate 400-500-pound people.”
In response, Darr said Vermilion Manor began purchasing beds and other equipment that could handle large patients.
“We’ve put in intense level therapy that in the past wasn’t the way nursing homes geared themselves,” she said. “It was more residential-style living in the past. And now it’s more acute rehab and acute care.”
Darr expects it to develop more with the inclusion of factors such as hospital stays. The Centers for Disease Control indicate the average hospital stay for inpatient care is around four days.
“You used to go to the hospital and spend more time there,” she said. “And now, it’s three days after an operation or less and you’re out and you can’t really go home yet, but you need extra help.”
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