Adult Illness, Alzheimer's and Dementia, Elder Law, General Interest
No Simple Fixes
By Estate Planning Attorney and Senior Advocate Rick Law. The Estate Planning Center at Law Elder Law is a Multi-generation law firm serving seniors and their families in the Chicago suburb of Aurora, IL. Someone calls a lawyer and asks for a “simple contract” because an adult child is going to be compensated for providing in-home care for a frail parent. Most of the time, neither the caller nor the lawyer can imagine the powerful, invisible forces arrayed against this agreement—cultural and religious tradition, judicial bias, elder abuse statutes, and the state Medicaid department. In seeking to serve my clients and their families, the case requirements are most often determined by the care needs of the family member affected by Alzheimer’s disease (the “affected loved one”). One of the key challenges of serving as the lawyer is the difficulty in understanding who the client is and how best to serve that client. It is important for the lawyer to carefully define whether the client is the affected loved one or one of the healthier members of the family. Nonetheless, the lawyer will be faced with carefully representing the client within the context of a disease that is impacting an entire family unit. Millions of people are currently providing in-home caregiving services for a loved one. Providing those services is done at great personal cost and sacrifice. People on the Alzheimer’s care journey often progress through a trajectory as follows:
- memory loss ignored
- memory loss masked/denied
- unsafe alone
- aid needed, but fights back
- assisted living required
- nursing home required
- hospice care required/death