Home: Consumer Information: Long Term Care Continuum

What is the Long Term Care Continuum?

The continuum of care includes all levels of health care and personal care service available. It is normally defined as all levels of housing, supportive, and health care services available to a person in a given locality.

Definitions

The senior housing and services industry uses specific terms to refer to the various levels of service and care. If you’re not familiar with those terms, it may be confusing for you to understand what you need. These definitions should help. Please understand that these are general guidelines and there are variations within individual facilities.


Independent Living
Retirement Community
Assisted Living
Skilled Care/Nursing Facility


Independent Living

Independent living may be something as simple as a housing complex for seniors, or might be one level in a Retirement Community. Independent Living includes residential homes, apartments, condominiums, townhouses, and subsidized senior housing. Generally, residents take care of all their own needs including meal preparation, housekeeping and transportation.

Residents must be independent. Use of a cane, walker, or wheelchair is fine, if the resident can take care of his or her needs without assistance.

Residents may have occasional memory problems or forgetfulness, as long as there is not a consistent pattern of memory loss and the resident is not a safety risk to him/herself or others.       

Retirement Community

A Retirement Community provides independent-living housing plus services for older adults. The community generally owns the housing and rents to residents. Accommodations are usually an apartment, townhouse, cottage, or patio home. The community usually handles all groundskeeping and maintenance of the community.

A Retirement Community usually has a package of services available that includes some (or all) meals in a community dining room, scheduled transportation, security, housekeeping, and planned activities. The community may also offer amenities such as a beauty/barber shop, chaplain and religious services, and gift shop. Often, a retirement community has other levels of care on site, including Assisted Living and a Nursing Facility.

Residents living in the independent-living area of a Retirement Community must be able to take care of most of their own needs. Use of a cane, walker, or wheelchair is fine, if the resident can take care of needs without staff assistance. Residents may have occasional memory problems or forgetfulness, as long as there is not a consistent pattern of memory loss and the resident is not a safety risk to him/herself or others.        

Assisted Living

Assisted Living communities serve people who are no longer able to live in their own homes or apartments because of physical frailty or mental confusion, but do not need as much care as is provided in a Nursing Facility. The buildings are generally very “home-likeâ€