Taking Care of Mom and Dad: Long-Term Care, Assisted Living and Nursing Homes Introduction
My mom is in great shape, physically. But her mind is gone. She has Alzheimer's -- and it's not even in its latest stages yet. But she can't take care of herself anymore. She forgets to eat or bathe. She doesn't recognize us. She'll fall asleep anywhere. And she can get physical if you try to make her go somewhere or do something she doesn't want to. Like I said, she's in really good physical shape. So, we had to move her into a place...a nursing home...where professionals can keep her on a regular schedule. She didn't seem to mind moving, though I'm not sure she even knows where she is. The hardest thing to deal with is that her heart and lungs are strong. She may be in there for 20 years. I'm not sure how we're going to pay for it.
Improvements in medical care mean your parents can expect to be living well into their 80s and 90s. But longer life expectancy has a downside; many older individuals have serious health problems that prevent them from living on their own or completely caring for themselves. If your parents make it into their 80s, the odds are about 50 percent that they will suffer from a cognitive impairment or have illnesses requiring long-term care services.
Aging issues are even harder on women than men. Since women live four years longer on average than men do, they're more likely to reach the point where they require health care services at home or in a nursing facility. Married women have an additional worry. They often use up their financial resources taking care of a sick husband, leaving them little left in reserve to take care of themselves later. This puts them financially at risk when it comes to long-term care.
Other figures bear this out. Women make up 75 percent of all nursing-home residents, 67 percent of elderly home health-care recipients and 73 percent of family caregivers.
The fear of running out of money in old age and becoming a burden to their family is an incentive for your parents to have long-term care (LTC) insurance...also sometimes called nursing home insurance. That fear is also an incentive insurance agents use to sell their LTC products. But don't let fear control your parents' decisions; the fact is that relatively few people spend more than a year in a nursing home or convalescent facility.
Long-term care facilities can be expensive. Insurance industry experts estimate that nursing home costs bankrupt 70 percent of all single people within three months and 50 percent of all couples within six months of one spouse being admitted.
Statistically, the likelihood of a person requiring confinement in a nursing home after age 65 is about one in three. At age 75, this likelihood is about one in two. In 2000, the average national annual cost for a person confined to a nursing home was $50,000 per year -- with costs in excess of $100,000 per year in expensive areas.
