For the first time in 25 years the federal government has completed a comprehensive revision of the way it regulates nursing homes, where 1 million older adults and younger people with disabilities reside. The new regulations—all 700 pages worth—govern everything from staffing and dispute resolution to enhancing the role of residents and families in designing care. They’ll take effect in [...]
Here’s an idea: If you want to know how to help frail older adults age at home, start by asking them what’s important. Then, provide the assistance they need to help them reach their goals. Their challenges, and the solutions to them, are usually pretty straightforward—a grab bar in the shower to prevent falls, good nutrition and medication management, or [...]
Early in the presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton proposed a package of ideas aimed at helping adult children who care for aging parents and other relatives. Yesterday, Donald Trump embraced a similar idea. Family caregiving, it seems, is going mainstream. It is striking that both Clinton and Trump are talking about an issue that until now has flown far below the [...]
For decades, people have been hoping for the magic bullet that will prevent, cure, or even slow the progression of Alzheimer’s Disease or other dementias. Yet, despite small hints of progress-- and billions of dollars in research--there is no drug, and no app or game, that can successfully treat these diseases. This year, results of these efforts have been decidedly [...]
A typical 65-year-old couple will need to save nearly $400,000 to pay for out-of-pocket medical care and long-term care in old age, according to new estimates by the Fidelity Benefits Consulting. That is $60,000 more than a typical couple’s entire savings at retirement, including equity in their home. Fidelity estimated an older couple will need to put away an average [...]
Imagine your mom has a stroke. Once she is stabilized, she is sent to a skilled nursing facility for rehab. Then she goes home and gets some home health care and additional physical therapy. Medicare may pay, but for how long? For many years, that was decided by the “improvement standard.” In other words, as long as this care helped [...]
About 7.2 million Americans currently own traditional long-term care insurance policies, a number that’s held steady for the last seven years. But who are they? And what does it say about the future of long-term care insurance? Overall, the share of older adults who own long-term care insurance (LTCi) has barely changed since 2002, according to new research by my [...]
Last week, the federal government announced that premiums for nearly all of its existing long-term care insurance policies will increase—by an average of 83 percent. In other words, they will almost double for federal employees and retirees. What does such a price hike on current policies mean for consumers, and for the future of long-term care insurance? First, a bit [...]
For the first time, both major political parties have explicitly recognized in their platforms the need for community-based long-term care. While the Democratic and Republican platforms included few specific recommendations, the fact that they acknowledged the importance of personal assistance and social supports for older adults (and in the Democrats’ case, for younger people with disabilities) is a significant step [...]
In recent years, it has become conventional wisdom that physicians avoid the end-of-life mistakes that many of the rest of us make. The story: They die at home rather than in hospital intensive care units. And they rely on comfort care such as hospice or palliative care rather than often-futile high tech medicine. That conventional wisdom, it turns out, is [...]