Most of the articles on this blog are geared toward family members who are looking for senior care for an older loved one. This one is a little bit different. While you can read it as a warning regarding the care of a family member, this warning is one that each one of us should take to heart.
Have you thought about your senior care?
A lot of times, we assume that our children, spouse, or another family member will help us to coordinate our care if we can’t. But what if, for whatever reason, that doesn’t happen? Then what?
Taking a few steps right now can save us huge headaches later on. The easiest way to do this is to know what types of senior care are out there, which you are most likely to need given your current state of health, and then decide on which types will best meet your emotional needs and make you happy. No one really wants care, but having some sort of say in what you receive is going to make it slightly better and more enjoyable for you. Also, you will want to consider things like making plans for a spouse and where that care is given. This is a huge topic, and one that you will likely want to spend a lot of time looking into before finalizing any sort of future plans.
As always, feel free to contact us if we can help.
The important thing is that you don’t take things like your future care for granted. We don’t know what the future will bring, and the more prepared we are now, the better equipped we will be to handle whatever life might throw at us and our families. Our children might not know how to find us the care that we need, or for some unforeseen circumstance, they might not be able to. And, more and more people today don’t have children to help plan these things out.
Being direct and ensuring things are written down in a legal document is the number one best way to ensure that your care goes the way that you want it to. A living will ensures that your care follows your wishes as closely as possible, while a living trust does the same for your finances. These are legal documents called advance directives, and a quick meeting with your attorney can make sure that they are phrased the way that you want them to be. Things might change as you age, but either way it’s important to get to a starting point. You can always go back and adjust things later if necessary.
Your family loves you and wants the best for you. Confiding in a loved one what your wishes are for future care can be a start, but it’s not a guarantee. Over the years, things change, people forget, and things happen. Ensuring that your wishes are met is a good place to start when you’re planning your own senior care. Speak to an elder care attorney today to learn more about how to make this happen.
Leave a Reply