Elder Care

Once you enter the twilight years (somewhere between 50 and 110 years old depending upon who you ask), your life is measured by a narrow set of skills known as ADLs and IADLs and several standardized tests. You need to know about these because they are used to determine just about everything: housing, government aid, medical care, and your ability to self-govern. What are ADLs and IADLs? The ADLS, short for...

Paying For Long Term Care Through Medicaid and VA Pensions There are two primary public benefits programs that can help pay for nursing home or long-term care:  VA Pension and Medicaid (there is another VA program for veterans with a service-connected disability).  Both programs have strict requirements for qualification and they are, to put it mildly, complicated. What is a VA Pension and How Is A Veteran Eligible? VA Pension is a federal...

Ready or Not, Here it May Come  Your Cheat Sheet for Dementia “Dementia” is a global medical term used to describe different conditions and diseases that share common symptoms such as impaired memory, performance of daily activities and the ability to communicate.    Some common types of these conditions or diseases are Alzheimer Disease, Vascular disorders, Down Syndrome, traumatic brain injuries, Huntington’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.   About 20% of the causes of...

President Wilson declared Mother’s Day a national holiday in 1914. Celebrated on the 2nd Sunday in May, Mother’s Day has blossomed into a $23 billion/yr industry. President Nixon declared Father’s Day a national holiday in 1972 to be celebrated on the 3rd Sunday in June.  Annual spending for Father’s Day is a comparatively paltry $12.7 billion. No president has ever declared a Children’s Day as a national holiday.   Internationally, there have been...

The rich and famous are not immune from guardianship, and neither are you. Take, for example, Buzz Aldrin. His guardianship case was in the news in 2018 not only because of his fame but also because of the unusual counteraction that he took:  he sued back. The contretemps started in a Florida court when two of Aldrin’s three children and his business manager filed a guardianship action against Aldrin.  Aldrin, age 88, responded...