"Family
members are already on emotional overload—adding a financial and legal decision
aspect to what they're already going through is enormous," said Carol
Steinberg, president of Alzheimer's Foundation of America, a national nonprofit
focused on the care and needs of people with the disease. "Therefore, the
more decisions made earlier on and with the input of the loved one, the easier
it is."
With most diseases, either the
disease is cured or it is not. With Alzheimer’s and dementia, however, there is
an actual change in the “person” affected and the disease can become
destructive, personally and financially.
Alzheimer’s and dementia are,
more broadly, simply not “diseases” in the classic sense. They require a
special sort of planning for both yourself and your loved ones.
The idea of planning ahead for
the possibility of Alzheimer’s and dementia is an important one. In fact, CNBC recently explored the importance of
early planning in an article titled “Create financial and legal plans to manage
Alzheimer's.”
Because the changes wrought by
these diseases occurs in degrees, by the time the problem is known it is
already too late to do anything about it, legally if not financially. Mental
competency is one of those core requirements to creating a legally sound plan.
When it is a close call, any plan made (even with trusted counsel) can just
fall apart. For example, what if a family controversy develops over who manages
the estate?
Just as the best time to plant a
tree is yesterday, the same holds true for making proper estate planning
arrangements. You (or your elderly loved ones) will never have more mental
capacity than you do today.
The very real threat of
Alzheimer’s and dementia provides an all-too-common and all-too-real reason to
consider what may come while you still can.
For more information and articles on
estate planning and elder law topics, please visit our website
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Reference: CNBC (October
7, 2013) “Create financial and legal plans to manage Alzheimer's”