Fisher identifies the seven most common causes of nursing home admission, delves into each cause, and outlines the key strategies for protecting yourself from these pitfalls.
Learn to start open, productive talks about money with your parents as they age As your parents age, you may find that you want or need to broach the often-difficult subject of finances. In Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk: How to Have Essential Conversations with Your Parents About Their Finances, you’ll learn the best ways to approach this issue, along with a wealth of financial and legal information that will help you help your parents into and through their golden years. Sometimes parents are reluctant to address money matters with their adult children, and topics such as long-term care, retirement savings (or lack thereof), and end-of-life planning can be particularly touchy. In this book, you’ll hear from others in your position who have successfully had “the talk” with their parents, and you’ll read about a variety of conversation strategies that can make talking finances more comfortable and more productive. Learn conversation starters and strategies to open the lines of communication about your parents’ finances Discover the essential financial and legal information you should gather from your parents to be prepared for the future Gain insight from others’ stories of successfully talking money with aging parents Gather the courage, hope, and motivation you need to broach difficult subjects such as care facilities and end-of-life plans For children of Baby Boomers and others looking to assist aging parents with their finances, Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk is a welcome and comforting read. Although talking money with your parents can be hard, you aren’t alone, and this book will guide you through the process of having fruitful financial conversations that lead to meaningful action.
Just a few of the vitally important lessons in caring for your aging parent—and yourself—from Jane Gross in A Bittersweet Season As painful as the role reversal between parent and child may be for you, assume it is worse for your mother or father, so take care not to demean or humiliate them. Avoid hospitals and emergency rooms, as well as multiple relocations from home to assisted living facility to nursing home, since all can cause dramatic declines in physical and cognitive well-being among the aged. Do not accept the canard that no decent child sends a parent to a nursing home. Good nursing home care, which supports the entire family, can be vastly superior to the pretty trappings but thin staffing of assisted living or the solitude of being at home, even with round-the-clock help. Important Facts Every state has its own laws, eligibility standards, and licensing requirements for financial, legal, residential, and other matters that affect the elderly, including qualification for Medicare. Assume anything you understand in the state where your parents once lived no longer applies if they move. Many doctors will not accept new Medicare patients, nor are they legally required to do so, especially significant if a parent is moving a long distance to be near family in old age. An adult child with power of attorney can use a parent’s money for legitimate expenses and thus hasten the spend-down to Medicaid eligibility. In other words, you are doing your parent no favor—assuming he or she is likely to exhaust personal financial resources—by paying rent, stocking the refrigerator, buying clothes, or taking him or her to the hairdresser or barber.
The author, a U.S. elder law attorney, uses real-life examples to illustrate how to evaluate current nursing home practices and policies, along with alternative care and associated living choices available for older adults; includes appendices with a nursing home visit evaluation checklist for prospective residents and their family and home care licensing guidelines by state.
This book is designed to be an easy read for all dealing with someone with Alzheimer's; from the caregiver in the personal home to professional caregivers working in the long term care setting. It includes an overview of dementias as well as ways to cope with behaviors. Communication is also an important aspect covered. Research updates as well as possible resources for the caregiver are included. Activities of daily living and a lifestyle enhancement program are featured. A brief section on the medical side is included but again this book is not designed from the clinical prospective and its focus is toward helping caregivers cope with their current situation of taking care of someone with Alzheimer's. Short summaries of caregivers that found their "light in the tunnel" are included as the last chapter. The first chapter is about taking care of your self because the caregiver will find it a difficult feat to continue to care for someone with Alzheimer's if taking care of themselves is not a priority. The overall goal of the book is to give the caregiver a compass or light to help through the day to day care of the person with Alzheimer's.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD “A beautifully crafted memoir, rich with humor and wisdom.” —Will Schwalbe, author of The End of Your Life Book Club “The idea of a cultured gay man leaving New York City to care for his aging mother in Paris, Missouri, is already funny, and George Hodgman reaps that humor with great charm. But then he plunges deep, examining the warm yet fraught relationship between mother and son with profound insight and understanding.” —Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home When George Hodgman leaves Manhattan for his hometown of Paris, Missouri, he finds himself—an unlikely caretaker and near-lethal cook—in a head-on collision with his aging mother, Betty, a woman of wit and will. Will George lure her into assisted living? When hell freezes over. He can’t bring himself to force her from the home both treasure—the place where his father’s voice lingers, the scene of shared jokes, skirmishes, and, behind the dusty antiques, a rarely acknowledged conflict: Betty, who speaks her mind but cannot quite reveal her heart, has never really accepted the fact that her son is gay. As these two unforgettable characters try to bring their different worlds together, Hodgman reveals the challenges of Betty’s life and his own struggle for self-respect, moving readers from their small town—crumbling but still colorful—to the star-studded corridors of Vanity Fair. Evocative of The End of Your Life Book Club and The Tender Bar, Hodgman’s New York Times bestselling debut is both an indelible portrait of a family and an exquisitely told tale of a prodigal son’s return.
Sensitively counsels readers on how to downsize a family home filled with a lifetime of memories, sharing practical recommendations for strategies based on the expertise of antiques appraisers, garage-sale gurus, professional organizers and psychologists.
This is the no-nonsense guide that will give you everything you need to know about how to pay for long-term care for yourself, Mum or Dad without going broke. Naked in the Nursing Home adroitly weaves together both humour and hard-hitting facts to equip you and your elderly parents for the future. This book is authored by a financial advisor who specialises in working with the elderly and their families, with new information from two of the leading elder law attorneys in the country. This book takes a look at the following critical information: Defining long-term care in layman's terms; Common myths surrounding long-term care costs and options; How to identify and prevent a family financial crises; Understanding Medicaid and how to use it to your benefit; Alternatives in long-term care insurance and tax benefits; Special benefits for U.S. veterans.