“The Consequences of Needing Care”

You have likely seen the statistics that talk about the risk of needing long-term care as you age. And like most, you’ve told yourself “It will never happen to me.” You may very well be right. But what if you are not? Rather than focus on the risk of an event happening to you, take a moment to consider the consequences that providing care over an extended period of years would have on the emotional, physical and financial wellbeing of those you have promised to take care of.

When asked, many think long-term care is about nursing homes. The reality is that long-term care is not a place, but a full-scale response to an event or condition. It describes the care you need if you become incapacitated, either physically or cognitively, due to a degenerative disease like diabetes, Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s or an incident such as a stroke. By definition these conditions severely compromise your ability to get through the most basic of daily routines. In reality, the need for long-term care is a safety issue that requires 24 hour a day attention.

 Since you are no longer safe, those you love are forced to restructure their lives to ensure your safety. The change in lifestyle and the stress of your slow degeneration can have a devastating impact on their emotional and physical wellbeing. You may not want your spouse or children to set aside their lives, but respectfully, what choice would they have? Long-term care doesn’t happen to you. It happens to people you love. Simply put, if you ever need long-term care your life is not going to end, someone else’s life is going to end.

I would like to thank Harley Gordon and his staff at http://www.ltc-cltc.com/ for providing a great deal of the information for this essay. If you want to learn more about extended care planning, go to my website, www.TheDeGeorgeAgency.com, and let’s get a conversation started about how I can help you. You can also become a subscriber to my blog (http://www.degeorgeagency.blogspot.com/). The DeGeorge Agency is a “Family Helping Families.”