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My 83 year old grandmother has made what seems to be a supersonic journey from being an independent woman living in a 1st floor condominium and driving herself just about everywhere she needed to go, to a barely functioning (physically) woman in less than a year's time. Since April of 2007 she has been in 3 Assisted Care facilities. While we have seen many sides of the aging healthcare system crisis, so far - luckily - we have not seen the worst-of-the-worst of the system. This is our story.

Grandma, while not the most healthy woman, was doing well living on her own. She had a Life Alert system, was mostly able to get around but has always been heavy, suffers Osteoarthritis, multiple bulging disks in her back, double knee and hip replacements, pins in her toes, carpal tunnelthe list goes on. The descent started with the arrival of the bulging disks she was having problems getting in and out of bed so she was spending nearly 23 hours a day in her lift chair. This, in turn, caused a "bed sore" to develop on her backside which she let go too long and it got infected. That infection spread into her blood and started her vicious cycle of cellulitis. This, unfortunately, landed her in the hospital and she never went home again. The biggest problem is that she has 100% of her mental faculties, it's simply her body that has completely betrayed herthis has to be the most difficult way to have to experience the system.

The first facility we admitted her to, was one that was a split decision: One of need and one where she knew people and a lot of people from the church visited regularly. It seemed to be a good selection until we experienced the skilled nursing, which was a minor nightmare: Dementia patients in the same room, wing and floor as the Rehab patients, non-attentive nurses and aides that were more concerned with sitting around reading books, socializing or listening to their iPods than taking care of the patient needs. This carried through to a lesser degree to the Assisted Living wing. There was some "verbal" abuse by the staff, but we being a very involved and attentive family tried to nip as much of that in the bud as possible. This facility was definitely an "older" facility. It had been well-established for years, was adorned with dark paneling everywhere, light canceling curtains, older carpeting and "institution" gray, tan and cream colored walls. The majority of the residents kept their doors shut at all times. It made for

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