Carolyn and Mikol here.

We hope all of you are well and that the Moms out there will enjoy your special day.  Happy Mother’s Day to each of you!

As for our aging moms, here’s a reminder about a persistent and growing $2.9 billion a year problem.

Our aging loved ones are targets.  The thieves are extremely good at stealing.  They see our parents are an easy mark,  If you will be visiting or calling your mom on this Mother’s Day, think about these things and keep Mom close to your heart.  Aging moms and dads too need our vigilant protection, no matter how independent they seem.
Imagine this:

Two ruthless swindlers were arrested in New York for tricking an elderly woman out of her multimillion-dollar property in Harlem she had owned for over 40 years.

A  home care worker bilked a frail elder out of her life’s savings of $350,000.  Grandchildren get loans from grandparents without any intention of repaying them.  Unethical salesmen touting unsuitable annuities seduce unsuspecting elders.  A few scheming realtors take advantage of forgetful seniors.  Even lawyers prey on unsuspecting or impaired elders to rip them off.

Mikol’s mom, Alice, is 89 and still very sharp.  Someone tried to rip her off by sending her a legitimate looking check for $3800, advising that she was the second place winner of a sweepstakes. She does play various sweepstakes.  All she had to do, of course, was to deposit it and “pay the taxes” on her “winnings”.  Of course the check is rubber and the money is gone before the elder finds out that it has bounced.

Classic scam.  Alice called the number and quickly realized that it was a phony outfit.   Not everyone’s aging parent is lucky enough to be so alert to this kind of fraud.

What we know from research into Alzheimer’s Disease is that one’s judgment about financial transactions may be the first thing to become impaired when the disease is in the earliest stages.  “Mild cognitive impairment” as doctors may call it, is not so mild when you think about the financial damage that can result.  And the elder with this early warning sign of dementia may be living independently, paying taxes on time and otherwise appearing socially normal. For a time.

Vulnerable elders are truly sitting ducks, easy prey.  Isolation, confusion, forgetfulness, and fears about running out of money can all drive the susceptibility to entering into a “deal” with a clever scammer.

Here are seven basic things a family can do to reduce the risks of ripoff.  Pick any that apply and please do them!

1.  Check in often. If your aging parent lives alone this is crucial.  One of my clients at AgingParents.com emails her dad every day to check in. Others call every day or close to it.  They may not think they need this but they do.

2.  Ask to be a co-signer on the main bank account in case of emergency.  Some aging parents will agree and some will resist but ask regardless.  It will allow you to do online monitoring of the account activity.  A “new friend” who gets money from them is a huge red flag.

3.  Have your parent sign a Durable Power of Attorney appointing a competent and ethical agent, which could be you, a sibling or trusted other.  If cognitive decline happens, the agent can at least get the money out of the account and put into another safer one that the impaired elder can’t access. This is one way to stop the thieves who are looking for impaired elders.  Nothing in the account, no gain for them.

4.  Suggest having your parent use a licensed fiduciary to handle money if they don’t want you to do it.    If there are issues of not trusting you, an objective professional can protect them from abuse. You might do research to find a reputable one for them.

5.  Provide and encourage parents’ connection to others. Think of isolation and loneliness as two big factors in why elders get financially abused.  If you can provide encouragement for them to get involved in activities, it will make them less likely to want to talk to a smooth, slick “friendly” con artist on the phone.

6.  Monitor everyone who comes into your parents’ home regularly.  Even the most trusted housekeeper, gardener, caregiver or bookkeeper can be tempted beyond reason when their own financial circumstances change for the worse.  Your parents are all the more at risk when they trust the familiar person, who can use trust to exploit unsuspecting parents.

7.   Do background checks on any home care helpers who are hired to work for Mom or Dad.  The cost is modest, and you can find out a lot:  bankruptcies, poor driving records, and of course, criminal convictions and civil cases.

We urge everyone to think about the risks to our aging parents.  Your parent may seem fine, but be susceptible to poor money judgment.  If the question of whether your elder is safe with money is on your mind, call us for a consultation.  Our expertise will help you manage whatever is ahead of you.

If the decision-making is making you crazy and you don’t know where to turn, consider getting a free complimentary strategy session at AgingParents.com.  It’s a start.

Meanwhile, we both send you our best.

Until next time,
Carolyn Rosenblatt and Mikol Davis,
Aging Parents.com

The Tough Question: Move In With Your Aging Parent?

We hope you are enjoying the beginning of spring and this time of renewal.  Mikol and I have recently moved our offices to new, brighter and better space and we’re feeling very renewed!  Wouldn’t you agree that there is nothing like disposing of junk and unwanted items to give you that free feeling?

So, here’s a situation to share with some of you who may be wondering about your own aging parents.

It comes up here a lot at AgingParents.com.  This could be you!

Victoria has had a struggle with deciding how to best care for her Dad, 86.  She moved him from his home to assisted living, but she’s beginning to think that was a mistake.

Over the last six months, there have been numerous errors at the assisted living facility. Dad is spending $7500 a month there.  First they got his medication mixed up and created a mess.  Then, they sent Dad to the wrong doctor. Finally, Dad fell and they called 911, but “forgot” to tell the paramedics about the fall.  He went to the emergency room for what was reported as “the flu”.

They’re supposed to check him out all over and take x-rays.  As the ER folks didn’t know about a fall, they did none of that.  He was released.  It was lucky he had no fractures. They would have missed them entirely.

Now she is asking herself: should I move in with him and take care of him myself, with helpers at his home?  When dad was cared for at home before, she didn’t live nearby. Now, she has moved back to dad’s home area.

Victoria is tired of getting upset with the assisted living staff.  Frustration is at the breaking point.

The main reason Victoria moved dad to assisted living was for socialization.  That’s not working. He spends a lot of time in his room alone.

Now she needs to look within.  Is she willing to undertake the daunting task of caring for dad as his dementia advances and he may become more of a behavior problem?  Will caregivers at home solve the problem, or will he be still too isolated there, even if she is with him in the evenings?

At  AgingParents.com, we come across this question often.The concept of assisted living works very well for some people, particularly those who are able and willing to interact with others. It can facilitate friendships, offer activities, balanced meals and transportation to various things like doctor’s appointments.  We went over the pros and cons with Victoria.  One option was to try a different assisted living facility.

But, things can go wrong at assisted living too.  There is no direct nursing care, even if a nurse is on staff to supervise the caregivers. The assisted living facility license does not permit “nursing care” from its employees.  Perhaps Victoria’s dad needs more care than he is getting there. If Victoria is available to supervise the at-home caregivers on a daily basis, she can be assured of what is going on and she can stop the mistakes the facility keeps making.

After two sessions and a lot of discussion, Victoria did decide to move dad back to his house and to hire caregivers through an agency to care for him during the day. She’ll move back into his house with her husband and supervise the care. We advised her to supplement his care with adult day services, which will be a place to go for social connections, activities and some meals.  The total cost for the caregivers at home and adult day services is about the same as assisted living, but Victoria will have much more control.

If this scenario could be about you and your aging parent, consider how Victoria is getting through it.  She tried her options.  She sought professional advice when one option did not work. She has been careful in considering the personal price of caring for dad herself. She is supplementing her home care plans with using adult day services to get dad out of the house every week. She is at peace with her choice.

We say, kudos to Victoria.  She is working at the job of caring for aging parents in a very intelligent and well thought out way.  We wish for you the same peace of mind, whether you move a parent in with you, choose a care facility, or some combination of help.

If the decision-making is making you crazy and you don’t know where to turn, consider getting a free complimentary strategy session at AgingParents.com.  It’s a start.

Meanwhile, we both send you our best.

Until next time,
Carolyn Rosenblatt and Mikol Davis,
Aging Parents.com

Countries need to think about how fewer young people can continue to support the elderly.

Where in the USA Do Men Live the Longest?

Hello again.

Getting rebuffed hurts.

Have you ever tried to talk to your aging parent about finances and been told to take a hike?
“Just mind your own business. I’ll be fine”.

Or has your aging parent ever said, “Let’s talk about that some other time” when you bring up the subject of money and the future? Of course the some other time never comes.
Some parents clam up, change the subject and otherwise put off having a conversation when their adult kids raise it.

What are they afraid of?

According to what I’ve learned at AgingParents.com from asking directly is that some aging parents are afraid of losing their independence and control. They are afraid of being put in a home if they lose control over their money. It is frightening to bring up something that they believe may lead to loss. They are Depression era survivors. If you talk about money you could lose everything.

Their thinking seems to be that if they can avoid talking about it, they can avoid the things they fear.

When visiting my 89 year old mother in law Alice, recently, my husband, Mikol and I talked to her and her friends about why people won’t discuss finances. Alice is very open and wants Mikol’s help in managing her finances. But many of her friends are not so open. We went out to dinner with some of them and asked them their thoughts on the secrecy around money in their age group.

Here’s what they said are the top reasons why elders don’t want to disclose what they have and don’t want to talk about it with their adult kids.
“If the parents have a lot of assets, they are afraid that their kids will lose motivation to work if they know about how much their parents are worth.”

“If their kids know how much they have, some parents are afraid their kids will pressure them to give the kids money as gifts, or more than they want to give as gifts and it will be unpleasant or confrontational.”

They are afraid that “if their kids know what they’ve got that the kids will take advantage of their parents, or try to get control over the money as the parents get older” and less able to fend for themselves.

Are aging parents’ fears realistic as described here? Perhaps. There is no doubt that in some families we see at AgingParents.com, the “vulture syndrome” does exist. Some ruthless adult kids are circling, relatively speaking, waiting for a parent to pass so they can inherit. Fortunately, I don’t observe that to be a majority of adult children I see.

Perhaps in some families, kids will pressure their parents for money or try to take advantage of them. After all, financial elder abuse is a $3.2 billion dollar a year problem. Most abuse is committed by families. However, these risks are not a good reason to avoid discussion of finances.

If you are a responsible adult child with parents who are getting older and less capable than they once were, it is definitely time to get past their resistance about the subject of money and the future. There’s one good reason for this. If you don’t do it, you may have it all come down on your head when a crisis hits.

Imagine your parent with a stroke, unable to speak. Or your parent falls and is unconscious for a time. If you don’t even know what bank Mom uses, or where the accounts are, how useful are you going to be? Someone still has to pay the bills when your parent is incapacitated. If they bank online and you don’t have the passwords, you won’t be able to do much.

So, the tips for the day are:

1. Insist that your parent speak with you about finances because it’s for your sake. They would be putting a huge burden on you if anything went wrong with their health and you had no information.

2. Find out what they have, where it is, how to get to it, and what it would take to manage finances for them in the event of an emergency.

3. Find out if they have done any planning for long term care in the event that they could not manage without help at home. If they have done no planning, this is a good reason to seek an appointment with their financial advisor post haste.

4. If you have siblings or other relatives who are involved with your parents, call a family meeting. Think it through and talk it through about what you’ll do if a parent suddenly loses independence. It can happen to anyone.

It’s a bit like disaster preparedness: we are all likely to fare better if we have a plan about how to take care of ourselves.

If this hits home for you, consider a date for you to take the first step and get it on your calendar. If you feel lost and confused, help is available to everyone, no matter where you are. Your Area Agency on Aging is a place to locate sources of help.

Until next time,
Carolyn Rosenblatt
AgingParents.com

Carolyn and Mikol here.

Hey we wanted to reach out to you and invite you to an exciting upcoming Webinar.

Get your questions answered related to the financial and emotional cost of getting old or caring for your aging parents.

5 ways your parents’ getting old could cost you a fortune.

Click this link to sign up for our FREE Webinar.

Date: April 24, 2012
Time: 6:00pm Pacific Standard Time
Duration: 30 minute presentation, 15 minute question and answers

LEARN:
1.  Most common mistakes people make about Medicare and caring for your aging parent
2.  Why your parents’ failure to plan can come back to bite you.
3.  What you are and are not obligated to do for aging parents who run out of money.
4.  How you can be in serious trouble if you fail to have that all important conversation with your aging parents.
5.  Five things you can do now to ensure your own peace of mind about your aging parents’ future.

• Attendees will have a chance to ask us questions.
• Take charge of your aging by learning critical information.
• Be better prepared to step-up and take responsibility when the time comes.
• As bonus to attending the 45 minute Webinar, you will be offered the opportunity to get a free complimentary strategy session at AgingParents.com.  Please join us.

Aging Parents.com

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