There are so many levels of Senior care. There is assisted living because you cannot take full care of yourself. There is some way of measuring that you cannot do it by ability to: Dress self; shower and bathe self; feed self; using the bathroom officially called "toileting", and there is one or two more that I cannot remember; Rehab is somewhere between the hosptial and home - formerly the convelesent hospital or skilled nursing facility; Retirement Hotel is independent living, but some have caretakers so it's pre-assisted living; There are group homes, where 4 to 6 senior share a home - sometimes they are for dementia patients or they might have a common issue - all stroke patients for example.

Most just offer a single bedroom and private bath or some shared; In Los Angeles, the Retirement Hotel option can run $1500 for a shared room with prepped meals to $7500 and up for the most deluxe with care and all the other bells and whistles. Sort of like the ship - Category H and higher! There is one place in Santa Barbara that is a condo on many acres. There is a multi year waiting list. The cost is in the millions to buy there and then each place has caretakers. Many of them are empty because people who are not ready to move there are buying then keeping them empty and available.

We pay $2300 for a single room about 250 Square feet including a huge walk in closet (8x10 for the closet), all meals (terrible food - as cheap as it gets, some transportation we don't take advantage of, 25 cent bingo and trivia and chair aerobics every day, and then we pay someone separately to come help Frank's Mom take a bath and do her laundry (she only needs someone there to see that she doesn't fall - she's not very steady at all). What's very sad is that they *( the workers and staff) are not very respectful of the residents. All their complaints about food and anything else is ignored. The residents all complain even at the best of these places. We recently visited one of the top tier places to see what it was about and the food looked wonderful, it was clean and beautifully decorated. And you could hear every one complaining at the other tables. It's all there is sometimes for entertainment.

I don't have kids or nieces and nephews who will take care of me when I get there. Make sure you have Long Term Care insurance so that the financial part is all taken care of. One less burden to worry about.