This book provides a comprehensive overview of a growing phenomenon in migration: retired Americans moving to Latin America. Through in-depth profiles of two of the most popular destinations - Cuenca, Ecuador and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, the book provides a unique commentary on the social forces shaping this new diaspora and its impact on the settings to which retirees relocate. Sections of the book address the lives and activities of retirees themselves; their impact on real estate, business development, and gentrification within historic cities; the availability and access to medical and long-term care services; and the role of governmental policies in attracting immigrant retirees and shaping their societal impact. Concluding sections provide guidance for potential retirees and for cities and countries interested in attracting these new immigrants while minimizing adverse impact on local culture and quality of life. Carefully researched and extensively illustrated with photographs, maps, figures, and tables, the book serves as an important new resource for scientists and policy makers, as well as for baby boomers who have retired abroad or are considering doing so.

Named a 2013 Doody's Core Title

Doody's Medical Reviews Score: 92, 4 Stars

" This book] is well written and achieves its aim of exploring the meaning of quality from a range of perspectives. It has a welcome focus on the views of residents, and the authors are to be congratulated for the efforts they have made to capture these views...This book will be of interest to a broad audience in relation to AL and other residential care settings, including managers, commissioners, care staff, researchers, students and also the wider public."--Ageing & Society

Considering that seventy-four million baby boomers will be the next generation of assisted living residents, there is a great need to create, sustain, and evaluate quality in these settings. Whereas most books focus on quality of care, this is the only volume to explicitly delve into the lives of those who inhabit assisted living facilities, seeking to understand and evaluate their perceived ideas of what constitutes quality of life.

"Quality Assisted Living" provides results from a National Institute on Aging-funded study that gathered information from not only residents, but also staff and family members, who are considered experts who can better help us to understand how quality should be conceived and evaluated. The volume addresses the complexities underlying seemingly clear cut issues and provides concrete suggestions for reframing problems in order to find better solutions. Plentiful stories and quotations are used to identity those elements of assisted living that are most conducive to a satisfying quality of life, and address how this research has led to a consideration of quality as a process rather than as a single condition. Key Features

• Employs the views and voices of research participants
• Provides down-to-earth and directly applicable results
• Written in a language that is accessible to a wide readership
• Describes complex social situation within the wall of AL
• Examines issues arising from collective living such as regulations, financing and diverse resident needs
• Uses real life stories to illustrate key points of the narrative

This book provides a comprehensive overview of a growing phenomenon in migration: retired Americans moving to Latin America. Through in-depth profiles of two of the most popular destinations - Cuenca, Ecuador and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, the book provides a unique commentary on the social forces shaping this new diaspora and its impact on the settings to which retirees relocate. Sections of the book address the lives and activities of retirees themselves; their impact on real estate, business development, and gentrification within historic cities; the availability and access to medical and long-term care services; and the role of governmental policies in attracting immigrant retirees and shaping their societal impact. Concluding sections provide guidance for potential retirees and for cities and countries interested in attracting these new immigrants while minimizing adverse impact on local culture and quality of life. Carefully researched and extensively illustrated with photographs, maps, figures, and tables, the book serves as an important new resource for scientists and policy makers, as well as for baby boomers who have retired abroad or are considering doing so.

With the number of elderly persons needing long-term care expected to double to 14 million over the next two decades, assisted living has become the popular choice for housing or care. Assisted living represents a promising model of long-term care that blurs the sharp distinction between nursing homes and community-based care and reduces the gap between receiving long-term care in one's own home and in an "institution."

"Assisted Living: Needs, Practices, and Policies in Residential Care for the Elderly" examines the evolving field of residential care and focuses on national issues of regulation, reimbursement, and staffing. The book is based on a four-state study of assisted living facilities and describes the facilities, the persons residing in them and their needs, and how the services vary by facility. Because one-third to two-thirds of residents in assisted living facilities have cognitive impairment, special attention is devoted to dementia care. The book also focuses on how today's long-term health care environment evolved, and it examines the future direction and implications of assisted living.

"Assisted Living: Needs, Practices, and Policies in Residential Care for the Elderly" brings together a group of nationally recognized experts to help define the types of residential care that should be encouraged and sets guidelines for selecting an appropriate type of facility.