People rarely call a law firm because things are going well. Unless you won the lottery, you call a law firm because you have a problem.
That’s the situation with the majority of people who call a Life Care Planning Law Firm. Something just happened. Mom has Alzheimer’s disease and is wandering. Dad had a stroke and can’t communicate. No one knows what to do or where to turn.
When you think of an adult child caring for an elderly parent, what comes to mind? For most of us, the first thing we envision is probably a woman in her fifties. What may not come to mind is elders caring for elders: men and women in their 70s and up caring for parents in their 90s or older.
An analysis from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College was the first to document how often this happens. Researchers found that 10 percent of adults ages 60 to 69 whose parents are alive serve as caregivers, as do 12 percent of adults age 70 and older.
How do attorneys find their way to Life Care Planning? For Emily Monarch, founder of Elder Law Solutions, a Life Care Planning Law Firm outside of Louisville, Kentucky, the path began with a position at a big law firm. “I started out practicing labor and employment law, but soon realized that it wasn't for me,” Emily remembers. “When my son was born, I decided to become a stay-at-home mom and delay practicing law until my kids got older.”
Caring for a person with dementia is demanding. By the end of the day, you may be exhausted. Meeting the person’s physical and emotional needs, attending to their medical issues, and taking care of household tasks is so time consuming that it can be easy to overlook another important aspect of a person’s care: their spiritual needs.
Spirituality and religious traditions are important. They’re acquired early and are usually deeply engrained. Eventually, they become part of a person’s DNA.
In this three-part series, we are following Diane Peabody, R.N., an elder care coordinator at Applegate & Dillman Elder Law, a Life Care Planning Law Firm in Carmel, Indiana, as she works with a family to relocate Jolene, the family matriarch who had been living in Florida, to a nursing home near her sons in the Indianapolis area.
Attorneys in Life Care Planning Law Firms aren’t the only ones who have dramatic elder care stories. Other members of a Life Care Planning team usually have them, too.
In the first article of this two-part series, elder care coordinator Cindy Hutson, R.N. shared tips for dealing with unsolicited critical comments from friends and family members who are not involved in an elder’s day-to-day care. In this article, we’ll look at how caregivers can develop the emotional ninja skills needed to manage push-back from critics, well-meaning or not.
It’s no secret that we’re living in a society that’s aging. As many seniors now live well into their eighties and nineties, more and more people are finding themselves in a position of having to provide care to their parents, grandparents, and other family members. In fact, 34.2 million Americans have provided unpaid care to an adult over the age of 50 in the last twelve months, according to the National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP.
