Articles Posted in Elder Law

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.

MobileHelp first began its foray into the elder care technology industry with a system that allowed its customers a way to seek help through pushing a button on pendants worn around their necks. But in only a few short years, this company has expanded its offerings of elder care technology to include medical alert technology that can detect falls without the use of a button and can help prevent them, as well.

MobileHelp Mission

MobileHelp was founded in 2006 at the research park at Florida Atlantic University and today has more than 100,000 customers in all fifty states across the country. The company generated nearly $18.7 million in revenue in 2013 and sales growth of 3,305% over the last three years. To support its rapid growth and new ideas, the company has raised another $15 million from investors this year.

According to Kiplinger’s, elder financial abuse has been named the “crime of the 21st century,” and according to a new study in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, as many as twenty percent of America’s elderly population may be victims. However, new efforts by attorneys are being made to train people in this profession to spot and report potential elder financial abuse and fraud.

EIFFE Initiative

The Elder Investment Fraud and Financial Exploitation prevention program (EIFFE) was launched by a joint effort between the American Bar Association (ABA), nonprofit Investor Protection Trust, and its sister organization the Investor Protection Institute. The goal of EIFFE is to curb the increasing levels of elder financial abuse and exploitation by teaching attorneys how to spot the warning signs.

The increase in the number of elderly Baby Boomers has also meant an increase in the number of seniors abusing medication, other drugs, and alcohol. There are many delicate issues that arise in treating the elderly for addiction. However, efforts are now being made to screen and treat instances of elderly addiction in hospitals, nursing homes, and other treatment programs.

Elderly Addiction Statistics

Experts agree that as the population of seniors grows so does the number of those addicted to harmful substances. In 2009, a study was published that found that because of the large size “and high substance abuse rate” of the Baby Boomer generation, the number of Americans over the age of fifty with addiction abuse problems was expected to reach 5.7 million by 2020, double the number from 2006.