An assisted living community provides communal living, often with planned activities, housekeeping and laundry, transportation, meals, exercise and wellness programs, opportunities to socialize with other residents, and assistance with activities of daily living. These can include bathing, toileting, eating, and dressing, and may also include things like medication reminders. Some have special units for individuals who develop some sort of memory loss. Assisted Livings can administer medications in most states but its the advanced medical piece like injectibles and sliding scales that they cannot do. Usually there is between 1-3 registered nurses available and the rest of the staff is LPN's/LVNs and CNA's. Assisted Livings are structured to look more like a home.
In a nursing home, residents are under the 24-hour care of licensed or registered nursing staff (in a skilled nursing facility) or of certified nursing assistants (in an intermediate care facility). Some examples of reasons seniors might need skilled nursing would be if they were bed bound, needed a respirator, or had wounds that were not healing and required daily care. If an indidvidual requires some rehabilitation either after a serious fall or some sort of huge medical problem this would be the best place for that individual because they could get e.g physical therapy or occupational therapy 7 days a week. Nursing homes provide skilled needs therefore they will look more like a hospital.
