Shakespeare wrote about the seven ages of man, in which he describes the human journey from helpless child to adult and back to helpless child again:

“…Infant, schoolboy, lover, soldier, justice, pantaloon, and second childhood, ‘sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything’”.

Anyone who has had to watch as their parents age knows how true this passage can be. And just as difficult as watching your parents age can be talking to them about it. No parent wants to show weakness in front of their child, or admit that they need help; and often their reluctance to talk is fueled by the fear that they’ll be “put away”, or have their freedom and independence taken from them. Adult children are reluctant to bring up the subject as well—they’re afraid of angering their parent, or sometimes their afraid of having their worst fears confirmed.

But ignoring the subject won’t make it go away, and waiting too long can be disastrous. The best way to talk to your parents about aging is to bring it up early, before fear and obstinance have set in. Having these discussions ahead of time prepares both parent and child for what may lie ahead, insures everybody is on the same page and that there are no surprises in store.

However, even with advance discussions and planning, it is likely that a few uncomfortable subjects will still come up. This article from Reader’s Digest has some advice on how to broach these difficult subjects (including the subject of estate planning), and even provides a few scripts to help get the conversation started. If you’re still uncomfortable, having a third party mediator can be helpful; a trusted doctor—or even your estate planning or elder law attorney—can be a calm voice of reason in deep emotional waters.

www.blogprofs.com

Health Care is one of the Obama Administration’s pet projects, and ever since President Obama took office there has been a lot of media attention and speculation about the national health care system and what changes (for good or ill) may be in store. Of course, the backbone of our national health care program is Medicaid—funded by the state and federal governments, and managed by the states, Medicaid is “the United States health program for eligible individuals and families with low incomes and resources.”

Of course we’ve all heard about Medicaid, and most people know the very basics of what Medicaid is and what it does; but when questioned further, how many people actually know the difference between fact and fallacy? Do you know which services Medicaid will pay for? Or if Medicaid covers parents and their children? These questions and more are answered in this article from Kaiser Health News—Medicaid: True Or False? The article gives the opportunity to test your assumptions about Medicaid and improve your factual knowledge at the same time.

As the Baby-Boomer population ages, nursing home and elderly care is becoming the fastest-growing aspect of Medicaid. This means that we’re all likely to have to have dealings with Medicaid—either for ourselves or for someone we love—at some point in the future. Shouldn’t you know as much as you can about the program before that time comes?

www.blogprofs.com

Many of our clients provide care for elderly loved ones; some even providing constant, around the clock care. Care giving is a demanding, overwhelming, and often grossly under-appreciated job. In addition to giving up their own time and interests, caregivers have to watch someone they love slowly regress and lose the ability to do even the most basic of tasks. Often, the senior being cared for eventually loses their ability to even recognize the people around them… including the person giving constant loving care. For all of these reasons, it’s very common for caregivers to experience depression and fatigue… caregiver burnout.

According to this article in the New York Times, depression and burnout does not have to be the plight of all caregivers, especially if you know the symptoms and how to combat them. And the good news is that just about all the preventative strategies listed in the article are easy and readily available… the hard part for caregivers is valuing their own time and mental health enough to take advantage of them.

There is a saying that hardships shared are halved, and joys shared are doubled; this is as true of care giving as it is for anything else. Many caregivers are reluctant to ask for help, but sharing the burden could save you from caregiver burnout. Don’t be afraid to reach out.

More information about caregiver support and resources can be found at the following websites:

http://www.caregiver.com/

http://www.ec-online.net/

http://www.caregiver.org

http://www.caregivershome.com/

www.blogprofs.com

“We are pleased to inform you of the result of the Lottery Winners International programs… Your address attached to ticket number 2051146 won in the second category, you have therefore been approved to receive a sum of 1,000,000.00 Euro. Congratulations!!!”

You probably recognize the paragraph above from a common mail/e-mail scam letter. This letter (or something like it) makes the rounds quite frequently in an attempt to part unsuspecting people from their money. Most of us simply trash the letter and move on, but the elderly are more likely to fall victim to the scam and end up losing hundreds—sometimes thousands—of dollars before they realize they’ve been duped. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal tells the story of one of these elderly victims and his family’s attempts to save him from the con artists:

“In less than a year, this Ivy League-educated professional sent at least $23,000 to slick con artists who came to know his personal interests, as well as his bank-account, credit-card and other personal information.”

The article states that the elderly are more likely to fall victim to these scams if they live alone, are grieving for a lost spouse, or have started to lose cognitive capacity. Luckily, there are ways to protect a loved one from scammers; protections from con artists and creditors can be built into trusts and estate plans, or in extreme situations a trusted family member can be given power of attorney over bank accounts and financial matters.

If you are worried about a loved one and would like to take more immediate action, here are a few steps you can take:

• Sign up phone numbers on the FTC’s Do Not Call Registry.
• Gather scam mail in one envelope and place it in your mailbox with the note “Forward to Postal Inspector—suspected mail fraud.”
• Place a short “I’m sorry, I’m too busy to talk right now. Thank you for your call” script by the phone to help respond to telemarketing calls.

If the fraudulent activity continues you can call the AARP Foundation Fraud Fighter Call Center at 1-800-646-2283. But the best thing you can do for your loved one is to be patient, supportive, and aware.

www.blogprofs.com

If you provide care for an elderly relative or a special needs child you know how much work is involved in just getting away for an afternoon or evening, let alone planning for their care if you were to pass away. First you have to find a caregiver qualified to handle your charge’s more demanding needs, then there are lists upon lists of “what if” situations, a strict regimen of prescription medicines, and of course all of the little quirks and routines that must be strictly followed. And after all that, just when you feel comfortable leaving your loved one in the care of someone else… your “babysitter” moves away and you have to go through it all again.

What if there was a way that you could not only keep a record of all details, regimens and instructions, but also an easy way to update and communicate that information to any and all caregivers when anything changed? And would it be too much to ask to have this record somehow linked to all the latest research, resources and best-practice recommendations? Apparently it is not too much to ask, because this is exactly what the new online service, CareGiver360®, claims to provide.

CareGiver360® is the brainchild of Ken Ziel, father of a special needs son, who worried about what kind of life his son would have if anything were to happen to Ken. After much research, Ken started CareGiver360®, “an easy to use, interactive Web service that lets you create a secure Personalized Care Guide to help you manage the care of your loved one. CareGiver360® provides a wealth of caregiving resources through its searchable online library. You can draw upon this valuable resource to supplement your personal experience to create a customized, comprehensive care guide.”

CareGiver360® is a fairly new tool, but it sounds so good one has to wonder why nobody came up with the idea before. We would love to provide our clients and readers with helpful reviews, so if you’ve used the service please leave a comment letting us know how it worked for you. And we ought to mention that the service isn’t free, but at just under $10/month it’s probably not going to break the bank either.

www.blogprofs.com

The decision to place a loved one in a nursing home (or the decision to leave your own home and move to a nursing facility, if you are making the decision yourself) can be one of the most difficult and harrowing decisions we ever make. Stories about disreputable facilities where seniors are neglected or abused are all too common, and even if months of searching lead to the discovery of “the perfect” care facility—the shining grain of wheat among the chaff—it’s normal to be apprehensive about exchanging the comfort and independence of home for the unknown in the hands of strangers on the nursing staff. This feeling is magnified if the senior being moved is essentially alone, with the next generation of friends and family scattered across the country.

To ease the transition, and to assure all involved that grandma will be well cared for, many families are opting to hire a Geriatric Care Manager. Traditionally (although Geriatric Care Management is an emerging field, so the term must be used lightly) GCMs have been a resource for seniors and their families; someone on the inside who knows the system and can help navigate, finding the best care and services for each individual situation. But some families are now asking the GCM to continue advising the family even after grandma has settled into the nursing home, to ensure that their loved one continues to receive the best care possible. At the very least the GCM may recommend hiring a professional caregiver to check in with grandma at the nursing home daily or weekly, to observe the quality of care she is receiving and keep family members informed.

If you are interested in learning more, or if you’d like to find a Geriatric Care Manager in your area, go to the National Association of Professional Geriatric Care Managers online. And if you are someone who doesn’t need a GCM quite yet, but would like your family to have help navigating the confusing field of nursing care when the time comes, call your attorney and ask to include a mention of it in your estate planning documents.

Knowing you are not alone, and having help from someone on the inside, can bring a world of comfort to you and your family.

www.blogprofs.com

Americans love our technology; cell phone, laptop, wi-fi, Kindle, iPod—all of these things keep us socially connected, culturally informed, and satisfy our growing need for instant gratification. But there is an assumption that this technological savvy and appreciation stops once you reach a certain age. We expect teens, twenty and thirty-somethings, and baby-boomers to be “plugged in”, but assume that Facebook and Wikipedia won’t be of interest to the elderly.

Turns out, we couldn’t be more wrong.

Stephanie Clifford of the New York Times writes that “among older people who went online last year, the number visiting social networks grew almost twice as fast as the overall rate of Internet use among that group.” For home-bound or wheelchair-bound seniors the internet and social networking sites can be a sanity-saver, keeping them from loneliness and isolation.

This growing trend is being helped along by social networking sites such as MyWay Village, designed specifically for seniors, their friends and families. These online senior networking groups allow members of the physically challenged elderly population to keep in touch with distant family members, meet people from their own cohort all over the country, and reconnect with old friends and co-workers—all at their own pace.

These are the same things we all love about the social networking sites, young or old. It turns out our aging parents aren’t so different from our teenage kids, or even from ourselves. If you think that your parents (or even you yourself) are too old to catch on to the latest internet trend, reconsider. Everyone needs a community, even if that community is out in cyber-space.

www.blogprofs.com

We write a lot on our blog about the separate pieces of an estate plan, the unique financial challenges facing adults these days, or each of the many individual concerns we face in the course of keeping up with the present and planning for the future; but today we want to look at the big picture. We strongly feel that planning for the future—really taking care of your family and loved ones—is not about individual pieces, it’s about seeing how those pieces fit together and make up the whole. Which is why, whenever we can, our firm takes a comprehensive approach to protecting your family and your future:

Providing for young children: We know that one of the hardest things to do as a parent is to try to imagine your child’s life without you. We also know that getting over that hurdle and choosing the best guardians for your child and creating a trust designed for their unique needs can bring a world of comfort.

Providing for elderly parents: Baby boomers are not called “the sandwich generation” for nothing. Having an attorney who can help you with the guardianship of minor children and then turn around and help you understand the ins and outs of Medicare for the benefit of your aging parents is not only convenient, it’s essential.

Planning your own retirement: The process of creating an estate plan forces you to get all of your ducks in a row, including your retirement and investment accounts, and we can help. In addition, our firm can help you understand (and execute, if desired) a Retirement Trust, which not only extends your retirement fund past its initial payout date, but gives you more options for distributions.

Saving for college: We can help you make sure that your college-age children will have the wherewithal to follow their (and your) dreams for education in the event that anything happens to you. An education trust is the perfect way to provide for your children’s schooling.

Investing in the future: The future is the business of an estate planning attorney, whether it be protecting your life insurance policy for your family, saving your property from probate fees, or minimizing your taxes.

We know that it’s not easy finding someone you can trust with your family security and finances. Our compassion and expertise make us more than just an estate planning firm, a probate specialist, or an elder law firm—we’re your family law firm.

www.blogprofs.com

The process of creating a last will and testament hasn’t changed much over the centuries, and the requirements are few: Paper, pen, witnesses, and a testator who is of sound mind. This endurance and simplicity is one of the hallmarks of estate planning—and yet there are plenty of ways to incorporate technology into our practices and use it to our clients’ advantage. One way to do this is with the use of video wills.

A video will is created when the testator reads his or her will in front of a video camera, and occasionally explains why certain gifts were granted and why some were not. The benefit of creating a video will is that it can be used to establish the mental competence of the testator. As such, a video will can be especially helpful to elderly clients whose heirs might be inclined to contest the will on the grounds that the testator was not of sound mind.

Although a video will can be a helpful addition to your estate plan, it can in no way replace an official paper copy, signed in the presence of witnesses. A physical copy of your will—drafted by a knowledgeable attorney and with your official signature—is the only valid legal evidence of your wishes for the distribution of your property. A video will by itself will not hold up in probate court.

Technology brings great improvements to our lives, but adaptation takes time. Talk to your attorney first if you are considering incorporating a video will into your estate plan. Although it can be helpful, a video will is not always necessary, and could in some cases be detrimental if not done correctly. Reading your will on your couch while your cousin records with her handheld camera is not a valid video will, you should only film under the advice and supervision of your trusted attorney.

www.blogprofs.com

A child paralyzed in a tragic accident; a spouse diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and then placed in assisted living after a terrible fall; mounting medical bills. How does one plan for a situation such as this? Kate Michelman certainly thought she and her husband had planned for every eventuality—she is a well-known and well-to-do public figure, they have excellent medical insurance, long-term care insurance—and yet still they found themselves “on the brink of losing everything”.

Michelman’s story is frightening precisely because it could happen (and is happening) to any of us. The unfortunate truth about medical insurance, long-term care insurance, and even Medicaid is that it often covers “most of the cost” of medical treatment—but “most” is woefully lacking when faced with the reality of the high cost of medical care.

And so we ask again, how does one plan for a situation such as this? The answer begins “with help”. The medical industry, insurance industry, and government benefits programs are staggeringly convoluted and confusing. Enlist help in navigating their requirements and regulations. Find a professional who can help you build a plan to make the best use of those systems and what they offer. Find other professionals who are well-versed in peripheral systems who can support that plan.

Medical care in the United States has become a mountain of cost, and even the young and healthy cannot afford to ignore it any longer.

www.blogprofs.com