A senior living guide is very important to have at all times when you are making the important decision of placing yourself – or a loved one – in senior care. The safety of you or your loved one is always the most important factor to keep in mind, and on occasion, with all the other decision making going on, this can be overlooked.

Consider these recent examples:

In an Indianapolis apartment, a young senior living resident was recently raped at gunpoint. The woman happened to be 4 months pregnant at the time. This took place in July of 2009.

Recently (July 2009) a 70 year old man was beaten to death at his senior living facility – police arrested the man who did this, and it turned out that the man was also a resident at the same residence. The man accused was 43 years old.

A senior living center employee from Boone, North Carolina was arrested in early July, 2009 and charged with stealing medicines intended for residents.

A Florida senior care facility was recently charged with videotaping its residents for over a year.

An Ohio assisted living resident recently died of hypothermia after she wandered away from the facility that was supposed to be watching over her.

Unfortunately, there is no shortage of senior living or nursing home facility horror stories. From bed sores to wrongful death, newspapers seem to be littered with accounts of abuse and neglect throughout the senior living industry.

Often, the vetting of facilities by family members faced with difficult choices is done too casually to avoid the fate that these stories describe.

When making your decision for yourself or your loved one make sure you thoroughly research your options to ensure you don’t end up with any accidents. A good resource for a senior living guide can be found at The Senior Living Guide Foundation.