Articles Posted in Elder Law

Families of China’s political elite and senior Communist Party leaders are now fighting for a more unusual cause: the right for their seniors to die with dignity. Failure to take every measure possible to keep these people alive is considered shameful and is often confused with euthanasia in China. As a result, the elite are given every possible treatment to prolong their lives, despite it not being their final wishes.

New Group Efforts

Children and grandchildren of some of China’s highest ranking officials have come together to discuss the issue of dying with dignity. Many recall family members that spent their final days strapped to machines and tubes instead of living out that time peacefully at home. The group’s goal is to help patients in China say no to certain types of medical interventions and instead seek palliative care.

The federal government announced on Thursday that it was changing the way that it rates nursing homes, adjusting the curve that it uses to measure the quality of the communities to make it more difficult to earn four and five star ratings. Using the new guidelines, officials said that many nursing homes’ ratings will likely fall, but the information will not be made public until February 20.

Current Ratings System

Currently, nursing homes are rated on a one to five star scale on the website, Nursing Home Compare a widely used federal website that evaluates more than 15,000 facilities across the country. Unfortunately, the system relies heavily upon unverified information that resulted in notoriously poor nursing homes receiving top marks. Two of the three major criteria used in the current ratings system, staffing levels and quality measure statistics, were self-reported by the nursing homes and not audited by the federal government.

An 89 year old man who was charged in the killing of his 86 year old roommate at a Buffalo, New York nursing home facility has died. Chester Rusek, 89, passed away in the Erie County Medical Center, where he was being treated for multiple medical issues. He was charged with manslaughter in the November 2012 killing of his roommate in the assisted care facility, Salvatore Trusello, 86.

The authorities stated that Mr. Rusek used a two pound magnet to beat Mr. Trusello to death as he laid in his bed at the senior living community in Tonawanda. Mr. Trusello survived the initial attack but died one month later due to his injuries. Mr. Rusek told police at the time of the attack that he believed that Mr. Trusello was stealing from him. Mr. Rusek’s attorney has stated that once a death certificate is filed, the prosecutors plan to dismiss the charges.

Violence in Nursing Homes

A number of elderly people create an advance directive that states that they do not wish to have life-saving measures performed in the case of a medical emergency. But now, more seniors are adding a new provision to their advance directives that state that if they develop a certain level or form of dementia or Alzheimer’s disease they do not want any type of nutrition or hydration. It has started a quiet debate among medical professionals over whether seniors who develop dementia can use this method to hasten the end of their lives in an advance directive.

Use of an Advance Directive for Dementia

The measure at issue is called “voluntarily stopping eating or drinking,” otherwise known as VSED, and it is a common end-of-life strategy for elders dying of a terminal illness. However, only a handful of people have incorporated the strategy into their advance directive as it pertains to dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

According to a new article published by Financial Planning, “How to Fix LTC Insurance” claims that the best way to make long-term care insurance accessible to more seniors, as well as affordable, is to integrate the use of short-term elimination periods. The Director of Research at the Pinnacle Advisory Group is claiming that the use of this often avoided measure may be the key for more seniors to be able to use long-term care insurance for their medical needs.

Purpose of LTC Insurance

Originally, the purpose of long-term care insurance was to guard against the “high-impact but lower-probability risk of needing long-term care assistance at an advanced age.” When this insurance was introduced, the thought was that a small number of seniors would need long-term care, but those who did would face incredibly high medical costs.

Most of the questions surrounding elder care revolve around who will take care of that senior or determining where that senior will reside. However, a more important question that the elderly should be asking is how can they take care of themselves for as long as possible without becoming dependent on the assistance of someone else. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and other organizations have put together a list of tips for keeping seniors active and independent longer as they age.

Improve Your Fitness Level

According to the CDC, falls are the leading cause of injury among seniors ages 65 and older. Consequently, falls are also one of the biggest threats to independent living for the elderly. In fact, in 2013 over 2.5 million seniors were treated in emergency rooms for injuries related to falls and 20,000 people died as a result.

Few people are aware that a nursing home has the power to file for guardianship over its residents. Because guardianship cases are difficult to gain access to or track through the court system the rate at which this occurs is difficult to ascertain. However, research is emerging that shows that this practice is becoming routine for nursing home facilities that have issues with financing the care of their long-term residents.

Nursing Home Guardianship Research

Researchers at Hunter College completed a review of New York state guardianship court data and conducted interviews with seniors that have shown that nursing homes are commonly filing for guardianship over their patients when long-term care costs become an issue. This practice is underscoring the increased power that nursing home facilities have over their residents and their families in regards to the financing of long-term care.

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.