Our medical system does not reflect the fact that all old people are not the same. All Americans 65 and older are lumped into a single group, as if bodies and behaviors don’t change over the last half-century of life. Included in this group over…
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Facebook Befriends Elder Orphans
There are about 5,000 elder orphans connected through a Facebook group, a group founded by Carol Marak, columnist and editor at SeniorCare.com. To belong to this group, you have to be 55 or over, living without a spouse, having no children (or having estranged children…
Understanding Medicaid Rules: Exempt Assets and Countable Assets
To qualify for nursing home Medicaid, applicants must pass some fairly strict tests on the amount of assets they own. While the Medicaid rules themselves are complicated and tricky, it’s safe to say that a single person will qualify for Medicaid as long as he/she…
Cremation Rate Increasing
Cremations are quickly becoming the choice for more and more families. For the first time, more Americans are being cremated than having traditional burials, according to the National Funeral Directors Association. The cremation rate in 2016 achieved a milestone, edging past 50 percent to…
Financial Victimization of Elders
A report by the Wall Street Journal states that 43 percent of older Americans exhibit one or more signs of financial victimization. Yet, a Merrill Lynch study indicates that phone-scammers and other spammer schemes represent only about 4.5 percent of elder financial fraud. So where…
When to Apply For Medicaid
I want to look at the case we mentioned last week again: Sarah applied for Medicaid on behalf of her father, Don. Don owned a home that he placed in an irrevocable trust in 2014. When he first moved to the nursing home, he had…
Communication with the Elderly
Several tips on communication with elderly people may be helpful in coping with family relationships. Sometimes it is difficult to talk with elderly parents, especially when roles are reversed and the adult child is providing advice. Some helpful guidelines follow. Giving advice is best avoided…
They Just Won’t Quit
Do Not Call doesn’t seem to work. Blocking doesn’t seem to work. What to do? Since January of this year, almost 6,000 scams involving phone calls have been reported to the Better Business Bureau’s Scam Tracker. As soon as one picks up the phone, their…
Medicaid is not a D-I-Y Project
Our office receives regular calls from families asking us to intervene in Medicaid cases that have been denied. Often times, family members are handed a copy of the Medicaid application from a social worker in a nursing home or the nursing home admissions director, so…
Toolkit for Diagnosis of Dementia
Primary-care doctors have a free online toolkit to aid them in detection and diagnosis of cognitive impairment, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Developed by the Gerontological Society of America, the toolkit model is named KAER, a four-step method. Step one is KICKSTART, an introduction about memory…