<p>Teriwtt: What do they call those places?</p>
<p>veryhappy - ?? </p>
<p>You mean the kind of place the couple I knew moved to?</p>
<p>Yes. Are they assisted living facilities, or grown-up dormatories, or step-up facilities, or what?? I like the way they sound.</p>
<p>A cheering thought: My mom id 84, completely healthy, sees very well, hears well, still does the NY Times Crossword puzzle, lives alone, drives, cooks, works part time, has many friends and adores her grandchildren. She reads, goes to the theater, listens to opera and travels a bit.</p>
<p>Mythmom, I have every expectation of being like your mom, well into my 90s. My dad was like that until 89. </p>
<p>I want to live in a college-dorm-like housing facility, where I can have my privacy but I can also eat with everyone else when I want, and attend concerts and so forth, and walk, not drive, to where I want to go.</p>
<p>I understand the desire of people to not “become a burden” but I don’t think intergenerational support is such a bad thing. When I’m 90, my DD will be 62. I won’t feel terrible if she wants to do something for me. She doesn’t mind it if I do stuff for her today. My parents/in-laws don’t mind if I do stuff for them. Isn’t that what family is all about? Caring for those who can’t care for themselves?</p>
<p>veryhappy, then you’re in for a wonderful surprise. But like I said, they’re expensive.</p>
<p>They’re called continuing care retirement communities (CCRC). Do a google for it, and I think AARP’s site has a good description of them</p>
<p>To see an example of one, google Friendship Village. It’s the facility I mentioned earlier. As a plus, if you check out the video testimonials link on the front page, the two people I mentioned in my previous post are Jean and Dave (I didn’t know their testimonial was up until I checked to make sure I had the right website before mentioning it, and there they were!)</p>
<p>VeryHappy - they are called Multi Level Long Term Care Facilities.
They offer care at different levels; you can move in when you can live fairly independently and then you stay at the same facility even when you need more help. All of these things:
[Types</a> Of Care Facilities](<a href=“http://www.caregiverslibrary.org/Default.aspx?tabid=183]Types”>http://www.caregiverslibrary.org/Default.aspx?tabid=183)
in one place.</p>
<p>This is why I fully funded Roth IRAs for both kids. Theoretically, they should be able to pay for a limo for me when I’m 90 and they’re 60.</p>
<p>My mother lived quite comfortably to age 86 in an assisted-living community. I expect they will become quite popular as we baby boomers age. Several friends already live in Trilogy, which is an over -55 community near us where a lot of stuff is done for the owners… lawn and yard care, community facilities, etc. That looks pretty good for the semi-independent sorts; I don’t think it will work for the over -80s, though.</p>
<p>My parents recently moved very close to me and onr of my sibs. I hav always assumed they would live their life near me over the other sibs, as we have the closest relationship. It is great to have another sib nearby to pitch in, and whilst I cannot ask the others to do alot, I do let them know what is going on and ask them to do some work for mom & dad.</p>
<p>I just hope mom & dad can stay in their place- no steps, so it should work for many more years.</p>
<p>I have an in law who has been wheelchari bound for 20+ years and FIL takes care of her, but as he approaches 90, that is getting tougher, We spent years trying to convince them to go to assisted living, but now are convinced assisted living in their own homw is best- a weekly cleaner, a gardner, a home helper several days a week is keeping things in balance. I think MIL would mentally fight the assisted living and view it as going there to die, so as long as she can stay in her home, we’ll do that, but it is taking more and more effort to maintain it.</p>
<p>I have a friend whose Dad had Alzheimers and had a pacemaker, the D really regretted that having been done.</p>
<p>I have done enough elder care that I am not sure what i would want at the time, but am not enthusiastic about life once you cannot get yourself to the bathroom at all and am not at all interested in being kept alive once my mental faculties are lost</p>
<p>“When I’m 90, my DD will be 62. I won’t feel terrible if she wants to do something for me. She doesn’t mind it if I do stuff for her today.”</p>
<p>I don’t know if you’ve considered this, but at age 62, she may be chronically ill, disabled, or caring for a chronically ill or disabled spouse. She also may be working full-time and living in another part of the country or world.</p>
<p>Myself, I would prefer living in an assisted living facility to living with my kids. One S likes climates – cold and overcast – that I dislike. He also tends to be narcissistic. My other son is more nurturing and likes the kind of places that I do, but I would like him to have the opportunity to live his life without having to constantly take care of me.</p>
<p>I would rather die quickly at a relatively young age than to live to be old and linger with a chronic, disabling illness like Alzheimers.</p>
<p>My 16 year old D is planning ahead. She said that she plans to become wealthy developing a pill that would help old people with their brain function, so that she could hire full-time servants to take care of me so that she wouldn’t have to.</p>
<p>Full-time care and increased brain function…sounds like she’s thought of everything!</p>
<p>Northstarmom:</p>
<p>I would rather die quickly at a relatively young age than to live to be old and linger with a chronic, disabling illness like Alzheimers.</p>
<p>I hear you, but isn’t that sort of like saying, “I’m shooting for 2400 on my SAT’s.” or, “I’m expecting that my son will nap for 2 hours every afternoon.”? This stuff is mostly out of our control. My parents are in one of those 3 levels of care places and it’s the greatest gift they could have given themselves and their children. I’m planning on moving to a place just like it <em>before</em> I need to.</p>
<p>My in-laws insisted on “staying independent” and they ended up at a not-so-good place when their in-home care thing fell apart. It was a nightmare for everyone. I’m not doing that to myself or my dear son.</p>
<p>I have learned through caring for my parents who have now both died that there are stages to retirement life. First, the regular house with garden help etc.; second, retirement community with golf, walking, pool, weight lifting into their 90s and some cleaning help; third, major full time help due to both parents having a health crisis at the same time precipitating a move to an assisted living facility; fourth, death of a life time mate, precipitating full time help on top of the assisted living help for the last parent; fifth, move them home with you and have full time care. It is all in stages if you live into your 90s. My dad died at 95 and my mom at 98. I have come to realize that I have spent the last 10 years, all of my 50s in this care mode. We all do what we have to do and one word of caution, don’t try and second guess any of it.</p>
<p>I work at a recreational senior center. Among our 500 members are two dozen people over age 90. Most of them are living independently. The most exceptionally high-functioning woman is 93 but might just as well be forty years younger. She lives alone in her apartment, drives herself everywhere, plays bridge four days a week, attends our twice-weekly strength training class, etc. She bounced back from a mild heart attack three years ago as if it were a cold. And, unlike most of the nonagenarians I know, who embody positive attitudes, she’s a fearsome b*tch (admits it herself happily) and always has been.</p>
<p>I know a local man who is blind, 100 years old, lives alone in his own home and does all his own yardwork. In the past year, he’s allowed a member of his church to assist him with a few tasks, since his closest living relative is a niece who lives 800 miles away. He has a standing order with his neighbors not to call an ambulance if they see him lying in his yard unless they know he is dead. For this man, institutional care would be murder.</p>
<p>I’ve learned a lot about healthy seniors during my career, though ours is a small sample. I think a key thing to figure out about retirement, especially if you’re fortunate enough to live into your late 80s and beyond, is transportation. Once you can’t drive, how are you going to get to doctors’ appointments, the grocery store, or out for some social contact? Living in a city with a good public transportation system is one option; living within walking distance of important services is another. Living in/near your kid’s house, when the kid has a job and other family obligations, can be a prescription for loneliness. Maybe your child can get the time off to get you to a physician, but he or she probably won’t be able to do much more.</p>
<p>There are many programs structured to allow seniors to remain in their own homes while they receive rather intensive services. In fact, there is a bewildering variety of senior programs available, and I expect these will grow as the senior population does.</p>
<p>A good program for seniors who own their own homes, don’t want to leave, but need funds for medical/living expenses is the reverse mortgage program. People often don’t realize that most reverse mortgages are federally-insured or government sponsored (though some private programs exist) and provide many protections to seniors.</p>
<p>Now that we late blooming baby boomers (try saying that 10 times fast!!) are becoming empty nesters 'way into our fifties, this is the next big dilemma looming ahead. Long term care insurance is a MUST for purchase in the near future.</p>
<p>My mother had the foresight to purchase it when it first came out, when she was 75; at 87, my dad was not insurable. I hope you all know that the most valuable coverage is for home helpers, who need not be R.N.'s, L.P.N’s or any kind of particular educational background; only that they assist you in completing daily tasks. At 90, my mother began with 24/7 helpers, and LTC paid for 2/3 of her actual expenses; she died in her home about 6 months later.</p>
<p>Except for using a walker and being hard of hearing, FIL is going strong at 97 1/2; 6 months ago we moved him to our city where he lives in a very homey assisted living facility close to our house. He complains about the food, but he has more chances for social interaction with other residents than he has had in 20 years.</p>
<p>What would DH & I like to do? Other than wanting to live near our children, it’s too early to know, but we are watching the real estate options in our city with interest; I firmly believe that in 20 years there will be significantly more kinds of choices than exist now, as our cohort will continue to set the curve for how to live well while being old. Let’s hope so, anyway!</p>
<p>I am one of the (apparently rare) people who does not find assisted living or a nursing home appalling. After a serious injury, I found myself (at the age of 51) living for a week on the short-term rehab floor of a nursing home because I wasn’t sick enough to be in the hospital or well enough to go home yet. There was only one other person on the unit within twenty years of my age. Yet I didn’t mind being there except for the fact that my roommate snored. The staff and the more functional half of the patients were good company, and it was nice to know that I wasn’t being a burden on my family. If a place like that is well-run, as far as I’m concerned the only problem is the cost. </p>
<p>I have seen two instances in my own family of people trying to care for very dependent elders at home, and neither worked out well. In one instance, a generally healthy, independent man in his early 80s was trying to care for his chronically ill older sister. It was extremely difficult. She didn’t receive good enough care at home because she objected to people coming to the house, and her brother couldn’t handle everything himself. She was in and out of hospitals, which probably would not have happened if she had been in a long-term care facility where her problems could have been better monitored, and her brother was miserable and exhausted all the time.</p>
<p>In the other case, a couple in their 50s, both with full-time jobs, were attempting to care for a relative in her 80s with Alzheimer’s disease. Their schedules required them to leave the patient alone for several hours each day, and there were enormous safety issues (she was a wanderer). They had to give up and put her in a nursing home, which upset her greatly because of its unfamiliarity (although it might not have if she had been placed earlier, when she was more functional).</p>
<p>It’s hard to decide about long-term care insurance, though. You have no way of knowing whether you will need it. All four of my parents and parents-in-law are dead now, and none of them ever required long-term care. Three of the four died suddenly and unexpectedly (two were the classic instances where a seemingly healthy, independent elderly person simply sits down on the couch one day and never gets up), and the fourth died after an illness that lasted less than a week. I do not know whether any of them had long-term care insurance, but if they did, nobody benefited from it.</p>
<p>Personally, I like the idea of continuing care retirement communities, where you pay a large fee to get in, plus a monthly fee, but you can move to different levels of care depending on your needs. There is a beautiful and well-run facility of this sort in the community where I live, but there is a problem developing with it – the surrounding area is rapidly moving downscale, to the point where I think that the generally affluent people in the retirement community will soon no longer feel comfortable at the nearby shopping centers and other facilities where their shuttle buses take them. But nobody could have predicted this change in the neighborhood.</p>
<p>Yet another good line for the POA for health care, no pacemaker if in a demented state. Otherwise, pacemakers keep many functional and independent for decades. </p>
<p>Funding a Roth for the kids is a very good idea as well, as long as they know it is for parental benefit very late in life. Can’t be taken if the parents have to spend down assets and is theirs to keep, in time, if life does not go on to such an advanced age. </p>
<p>With current treatments, don’t assume anything based on age. My mom just turned 85, is still teaching music, driving, if a little troubled in the word finding department due to a small stroke. My grandmother traveled independently around the world twice in her 80s, visiting family and friends. A stroke at 90 kept her close to home, but she lived at home with the help of friends and the British National Health service till age 96. </p>
<p>Me? Living scared of stroke. No guarantees. My dad lingered for two agitated, troublesome, expensive years. Were he to have seen himself, he’d have recommended that he be taken to a back field and shot, as he had little sympathy for the infirm. But even in that demented state, I could see him clinging to life and the things he loved. </p>
<p>I’ve seen people brighten after moving to assisted living, due to the companionablity of many of those places. A house alone, few people to brighten it, becomes just a shell after a time.</p>
<p>Yes, it isn’t the 80s that worry me, it is getting past 90! When my mother and father were in their mid-80s they were driving, travelling, and looked terrific. Even 90 wasn’t too bad. My father still had a driver’s license that was good when he died. But he knew he shouldn’t drive and stopped with a nudge and a wink. My parents were tigers and didn’t want to give up any control of their lives into their 90s. But nothing stays forever. We are all meant to meet our maker. Thankfully they started to ask for help and my sis and I were there to help them through the most difficult times of letting go and making peace.</p>
<p>The giving up control piece is hard for the dudedad dad, particularly driving. He is 91. I visited him in his gated So. Florida retirement condo last week. He’s always been fit, mentally and physically, but is slowing down. He hates the thought of an assisted living situation, so for now we’ll keep his 24/7 nurse.</p>