In a 2013-2014 survey of long-term care in America, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention determined more than 8.7 million people had been served by long-term care providers like adult day service centers and nursing homes. More than 1.3 million of those people were residents of nursing homes. Just over 50 percent of those people — more than 650,000 — were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease or another form of dementia.

But few people want to think about placing a loved one in a home. There are a lot of emotions involved, such as guilt over “pawning off” a relative to a professional, uncertainty over all the factors involved in choosing a facility or fear over signing on the dotted line and making a commitment.

That uncertainty and fear can be especially strong when it’s not clear whether the person in question needs assisted living at all, said Brenda Dodd of Aegis Living in Issaquah. But the admitting process is long and hesitation can postpone the inevitable and force a family to confront a battery of complicated forms in the middle of a personal disaster.

“Families are making this decision in crisis mode,” said Dodd, who is the marketing director or Issaquah Aegis. “They’re stressed out, getting no sleep. What happens is, you can make a wrong decision.”

So Dodd advises some of her potential residents’ families to do something counterintuitive: Sign some — not all, but some — of the admitting paperwork as soon as possible. Even if they haven’t committed to the idea of boarding a family member. Even if they don’t ultimately choose to admit that family member to Aegis.

Three years ago, after dealing with a similar scenario with a member of her own family, Dodd put together a “crisis file” for potential clients who were unsure whether they wanted to pursue assisted living, but could also be at risk of needing to commit to assisted living suddenly.

The red folder contains a number of vital yet broad forms, such as emergency contact information and physician’s orders, as well as a checklist of necessary I.D. and personal information.

Dodd estimated she had recommended the crisis folder to a dozen potential clients in the past three years. Meanwhile, Aegis has adopted the crisis file on a larger scale, rolling it out at other assisted living facilities.

“I really wanted to bring security to families,” she said.

But the crisis file can be a tough sell. Dodd recalled one man who struggled over whether to commit his wife for months as she developed dementia. Dodd said she was finally able to convince him to complete the forms for a crisis file. That was on a Friday.

On Monday, the woman in question had swung into the middle of a dementia episode, and Dodd found herself coaching her husband over the phone as he attempted to coax her out of the road and into his car. Once he was able to do that, he was able to take her directly to Aegis for admitting.

“We couldn’t have done that if he hadn’t filled that out on Friday,” she said.