To the Editor,
As you are aware, your planning can go in directions that you never thought would happen. Someone quoted, “Success doesn’t just happen. We planned for it.” When you start in your life, there is a direction you believe is best for you and your spouse. You make sure your financial plan will be there when you retire.
There are so many varying opinions on the keys to success and leading a meaningful, happy, and fulfilling life. Working hard, having discipline, saving, and sacrificing are just a few examples. However, the integral factors necessary to be successful at anything is planning. “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.” – Yogi Berra
Your plan does not see the unexpected. How can you plan for something which you cannot anticipate? The truth is, you can’t plan the details, but you put yourself into a certain mindset that will help you succeed. While not all unexpected events are negative, generally, the big ones that affect your financial future tend to negative surprises. This possibility of unexpected financial hardship means you may need to change the way you think about and handle your money.
When the spouse caregiver doesn’t see the signs that his/her spouse is having symptoms affecting his/her memory and the spouse has dementia that could affect both, in many cases, the spouse caregiver is in denial or thinks everything will be okay. But the spouse caregiver ends up with gastric bleed from the ulcer, and if your family to assist, you are fortunate to have them. People try to hide their problems. But if both the patient and their loved ones ignore changes in behavior, even if they are subtle, this can lead to problems. A dementia patient only has a small window of being objective. They cannot solve problems; they cannot participate in decisions that involve their care and finances.
The Mayo Clinic reports: “Dementia describes a group of symptoms affecting memory, thinking and social abilities severely enough to interfere with your daily life. It isn’t a specific disease, but several different diseases may cause dementia. It is caused by damage to or loss of nerve cells and their connections in the brain. Depending on the area of the brain that’s affected by the damage, dementia can affect people differently and cause different symptoms.
“Another problem stemming from denial could be not getting needed legal papers in places, such as financial power of attorney, medical power of attorney also known as advance health directive, and written permission for adult children to see their health records. Without those in place, getting proper care, dealing with finances, and authorizing needed medical procedures can be difficult. You would have to go to court to get legal rights to supervise their care, in the form of a Conservancy (or guardianship), which is expensive to initiate and maintain. Not to mention the time it would take. Obtaining a Conservancy also involves having your loved one deemed incompetent, which can be very humiliating for them. Once they are deemed incompetent, they can no longer execute legal documents.” From Senior Living News
Here is where the financial plan has omitted the cost of care for the spouse — assisted living facility averages $4800 to $8000 a month. Medicare doesn’t cover those costs. Dementia begins with custodial care: routine personal care that does not require the attention of trained medical staff. Intermediate care is the step beyond that when medical care is necessary, but not constant, and at the level of skilled care, your loved one with dementia needs constant medical care to maintain what quality of life they can. There are supplemental health insurance products if you purchase early, in your twenties, the cost is low. Late in life buying, the cost is extremely high.
“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” – Charles Darwin
Norman Halls,
Southwick
