By Roderick R. Barnes

In the past twenty years, the range of retirement living and long term care options for senior citizens has expanded along with the elderly population. With an eye on senior citizens’ preferences and their pocket books, the geriatric care industry now offers a rich continuum of care facilities and services, from in-home assistance, to assisted living centers, to hospice homes.

As so often happens, the innovations of the marketplace have outrun government legislatures and regulators. It is no wonder that there exist gaps in the regulatory framework governing the industry. But consumers should be aware of these gaps, one of the most conspicuous of which in some states concerns “independent living” facilities.

A relative newcomer to the industry, the independent living home or community evolved from the “assisted living” model. Assisted living options are tailored for seniors who need help with daily activities like eating or being fed, grooming, bathing, dressing, and mobility. Such homes do provide residents a modicum of independence, but they are really for very frail or infirm people who cannot survive on their own.

Thus, seniors with active lifestyles and relatively good health are often averse to the assisted living options available. They may be frail, may need assistance now and then, but on the whole they can eat, dress, bathe, and get around on their own. They are mentally sharp, but due to their age are looking to downsize to a single level, low maintenance living environment.

By Jacqueline Marcell, National Speaker & Author of “Elder Rage”

When I suddenly had to become a fulltime caregiver to my elderly parents, both with health problems and starting to develop dementia (namely Alzheimer’s), I had never even heard of Long-Term Care Insurance. After we burned through their life savings and started chipping away at mine, I was advised to apply for financial assistance for them through the government’s Medicaid system (“Medi-Cal” in California)--a program for those at the poverty level. It was a long process with mounds of paperwork and numerous investigations, but finally my parents were approved.

I was so happy that monetary help would finally be on the way, until I found out that the financial assistance would only pay to place my parents in a nursing home, not even in assisted living, and with very little help to keep them in their own home.

Since their levels of care were so different (my mother needed nearly all ADL’s (Activities of Daily Living) done for her, there weren’t any facilities that would allow my parents to be together. Instead, they’d be across the street from each other in different wings of the facility. After fifty-five years of marriage, they were adamant about wanting to stay together in their own home, in their own bed, where they could continue to cuddle and kiss--as they so frequently did. And, since my father could be so “challenging” with terrible temper tantrums when he’d get upset, and with quite a long record of manipulative disruptive behaviors--none of the facilities wanted to deal with him anyway.

By P.L. Fields LLC

The decision to place your loved one into a nursing home is an extremely difficult decision, often causing much guilt for the caregiver. It is a very emotional decision for most clients we see and most are under a certain amount of stress, often great, when facing what they consider to be a drastic course of action.

I counsel our caregiver clients to get beyond the guilt as quickly as they can, because the situation their loved one is in is not the caregiver’s fault. And besides, the longer you remain under this stress, the less healthy you eat, or you eat way too much, the less you sleep, and some start drinking (my own mother started this late at night after she got my dad settled in bed for the evening – not healthy to say the least).

Estate Planning and Wills - Celebrity Wills

Mr Robert Monahan, a Senior Estate Planner with Australian Executor Trustees', said many principles used by celebrities when drawing up their Wills also could be applied in far more routine circumstances for everyday Australians.

“Even though the value of the Estate may vary by millions of dollars, there are still many important lessons to be drawn from the best and worst celebrity Wills.'

One of the most common flaws with Wills is that they were not kept up to date and the Will of Diana, Princess of Wales, clearly illustrated the impact this oversight can have on family members. 

Despite advice to the contrary, Diana did not revise her Will following her divorce from Charles in 1996. As a result, her Will was somewhat out of date when she died unexpectedly a year later. Diana's initial Will was rather general and gave virtually no instructions in regards to her intellectual property rights, which are now extremely valuable.