by Jay Luxenberg, MD

One of my passions is to explore variations in long-term care as I travel internationally. I often come away from a visit to a nursing home, dementia care center, or assisted living center with new ideas or insights. Recently, I had the chance to tour two assisted living facilities in Beijing, as part of attending the International Psychogeriatric Association meeting held there. It was an excellent meeting, but I didn’t mind missing a few sessions to participate in the tours that they arranged.  First of all, it is fun to go on these tours with colleagues from all around the world – that helped to make sure we asked questions from a variety of viewpoints.

Both assisted living facilities I visited in Beijing are collaborative ventures between Chinese companies and American companies. Senior Living L’Amore – Kajian is constructed and I believe managed with input from Emeritus Corp., now part of of Brookdale Senior Living, Inc.  The 110 bed facility has a memory support unit, a rooftop garden with endless pathways (although the air quality in Beijing would probably put an end to your walking fairly quickly), and both Western and Asian medical clinics. They currently have two full time physicians on site, although the management acknowledged that this was primarily a marketing factor as the census doesn’t really warrant that staffing ratio. The rehabilitation facilities are really wonderful, and the amenities  would satisfy a very demanding audience. Their Chinese language web site provides some pictures.

One factor that I found interesting was that in contrast to South Korea or Japan, where long-term care is part of the government provided health care system, in China there is no government provided long-term care. Essentially all facilities for long term care are private pay, and the cost (up to $3000 a month at this facility) is very high for the average worker, but within the reach of the middle and upper middle class.  Although they don’t market it to foreigners, it is very reasonably priced compared to similar facilities in the US, and for elderly Chinese Americans who speak the language it might be a viable alternative to a facility in the US.

I also visited a sister facility owned by the same company. It was a bit older and closer to being fully filled, and in many other ways it was very similar to the first facility I visited. I think the consensus of the long term care professionals who accompanied me on the tours was that these are really state of the art facilities, still with institutional features like most assisted living facilities I visit, but incorporating the latest environmental modifications that I see in the newest of our facilities. It clearly is targeting a select audience wealthy enough to afford this level of care. Ironically, in a communist society the long-term care availability is entirely a fee for service phenomenon now. I do get the impression from attending the meeting, though, that Chinese clinicians are aware of the growing needs of the elderly there, partly a product of the one child policy and partly due to the dramatic changes in society that they have experienced in the past decades, and that we can expect more broadly available services to be developed in coming years. I had a real sense of excitement given the increasing wealth the Chinese are experiencing, which may translate into new and innovative programs for the elderly. I look forward to future visits to China to see their progress on that front.