Articles Posted in Elder Law

According to researchers at Georgetown University and Penn State University, over seventy percent of seniors in America over the age of 65 will need some type of long-term care in their lifetime, either at an assisted living facility or nursing home. However, according to a new study only a fraction of those people should be purchasing long-term care insurance, and the authors boldly claim that “individuals should not buy insurance.” So how should an elder decide if long-term health insurance is the right course of action?

Long-Term Care Insurance Study

According to the study published by Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research, only nineteen percent of men and 31% of women should purchase long-term care insurance. The reasons for this bold statement come from a variety of factors. In addressing the discrepancy between men and women, females are statistically likely to live longer so they are also more likely to need to purchase the insurance.

With the number of elderly people in the United States growing at a fast rate, it is becoming common knowledge that most seniors wish to stay out of nursing homes and similar facilities as long as possible. In addition, research has shown that seniors who stay in their own homes or communities tend to stay the healthiest, physically and mentally, longer on average than those who do not. As a result, one of the hottest new trends in real estate is having the added amenity of an in-law apartment.

In-Law Apartments

For domestic and foreign buyers alike, a growing trend in real estate amenities is to have an in-law unit – an apartment carved out of an existing home or a separate dwelling built on the property meant specifically for aging parents and in-laws. The benefit is tri-fold: the adult children get the peace of mind of having their parents nearby, the elderly parents get to remain out of nursing home facilities, and the extra accommodations are adding value to the property.

For many seniors around the country who still live at home, the biggest challenge in keeping from going hungry is not having the money to buy food or being able to prepare it, but being able to chew. The first of its kind, a pilot program is aimed at researching and helping fix seniors’ oral health. Being called “eye-opening,” the program is offering firsthand knowledge of what experts had only guessed at being elderly dental concerns.

Oral Health Study

The nonprofit food delivery service Citymeals-on-Wheels joined with the Columbia University College of Dental Medicine to conduct the study on seniors’ oral health. The pilot program has been funded by a $50,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health, and it involves both phone interviews in addition to dental house calls for low-income seniors. Many of the participants in the study have not seen a dentist in years, and some in decades.

As people age and children leave the house, many parents entering retirement age use the opportunity to downsize their home and belongings. Rather than downsizing all at once, a growing trend among seniors is to do so in steps over a period of years. In earlier generations, the elderly usually downsized all at once and only once. Now, an overwhelming number of older people are taking a more gradual approach to downsizing, choosing to reduce a house or career but not doing so all at once.

Trends in Downsizing

Rather than selling the house and moving to a warmer climate, many downsizing elders are opting to stay in the same neighborhood or at least the same town. A survey by the AARP’s Public Policy Institute found that 87% of those age 65 years old and older, and 71% of those ages 50 to 64, preferred to stay close to their longtime neighborhoods instead of making the traditional choice of packing up and moving to a resort area or assisted living facility.

Caregiving is about more than just tending to the physical needs of an elderly parent. If your parent is also dealing with dementia or another degenerative disease, you must also prepare to cope with effects on both the body and mind. In the event that your parent becomes incapacitated, you need to decide whether your or someone that you trust will fill the decision making role. The ability to do so comes in the form of a Power of Attorney document.

How to Make a Power of Attorney

It is vitally important that you and your parent discuss and designate a power of attorney before incapacitation occurs. A power of attorney (POA) is a formal, legally binding agreement between the person who needs it (“grantor”) and the person designated to act on the grantor’s behalf (“agent”). An experienced attorney will be able to draft a POA for you and your parent, especially if there are financial matters or assets that may complicate decision making.

In decades and centuries past, when people got old their children and younger relatives would care for them until they died. Now, when elderly Americans are too old to care for themselves and assisted living is not an option for financial, physical, or mental reasons many are sent to live in a sterile, hospital-like nursing home. However, one geriatrician is working on developing another option for where frail seniors can live and thrive: Green House homes.

Green House Project

Dr. Bill Thomas helped to create and develop the Green House project, a model for long-term care that nurtures the elderly and helps frail seniors thrive. The project was co-founded by Dr. Thomas and Steve McAlilly of Mississippi Methodist Senior Services in 2003, and it has since spread to 27 states.

One common concern for seniors living alone is the lack of community and companionship. Not only can it be dangerous for an elderly person to live alone, but loneliness can have a physical, emotional, and mental toll on someone of advanced age. However, in order to combat the issues associated with living alone, a growing trend amongst the elderly is the concept of cohousing.

Cohousing Communities

Cohousing is different than a retirement home or assisted living facility. A cohousing, or “coho” community, combines private apartments or homes designed around a communal space. The common area typically includes the kitchen, large dining room, laundry facilities, and recreational areas.

In multiple surveys and studies, senior Americans and retirees have not scored well on retirement literacy tests. In the latest study, U.S. citizens between the ages of sixty and 75 who were polled had an eighty percent failure rate of the retirement literacy test. The results of the poll and subsequent survey were released this week by the American College of Financial Services.

Results of the Study

The poll was conducted by the American College of Financial Services through online interviews of 1,019 people between the ages of sixty to 75 who had at least $100,000 in household assets. The participants were asked a series of 38 questions regarding retirement literacy basics. This included questions about Social Security, life expectancy, IRAs and other retirement accounts, life insurance, investments, and how bonds work. Only two in ten participants had passing grades.