rising alzheimer's creates strain on caregivers

[xchrom]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_MED_ALZHEIMERS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-09-20-05-08-19

WASHINGTON (AP) -- David Hilfiker knows what's coming. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer's so early that he's had time to tell his family what he wants to happen once forgetfulness turns incapacitating.

"When it's time to put me in an institution, don't have me at home and destroy your own life," said the retired physician, who is still well enough that he blogs about the insidious progress of the disease. "Watching the Lights Go Out," it's titled.

Nearly half of all seniors who need some form of long-term care - from help at home to full-time care in a facility - have dementia, the World Alzheimer Report said Thursday. It's a staggering problem as the global population ages, placing enormous strain on families who provide the bulk of that care at least early on, and on national economies alike.

Indeed, cognitive impairment is the strongest predictor of who will move into a care facility within the next two years, 7.5 times more likely than people with cancer, heart disease or other chronic ailments of older adults, the report found.

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1. It makes a lot of sense to plan in advance as recommended in the article, but for many people

planning won't be much use. It costs anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 per MONTH to pay for Alzheimer's care in a nursing home. And it can go on for years. Most long-term-care policies don't begin to cover the actual cost. Medicare does not cover it at all.

If you have two parents suffering from dementia, as I did, it is out of the question to finance nursing home care for them. Taking care of them at home is just about the only option. It took me two years to get my own health back after several years of care-giving.

What I am hoping for is some option for assisted suicide that can be set in place in advance, the problem being that once you need the suicide, you no longer have the brain-power to know it or carry it out. And at that point you become 100% your family's problem.

[Nay]

2. I also feel like screaming at people who act like "planning" will do anything to help with Alzheimer

patients. Plan what? If you hold a regular job and your mother has dementia, what are you supposed to do? You don't earn enough to put her in dementia long term care; you can't give up your job to stay at home and care for her, because then neither of you would have a house or food; what exactly are you supposed to "plan"? How to kill yourself when it gets to be too much?