Anonymous wrote:My other is turning 90 this week and going on her third year in memory care at about $11,000 a month. Fortunately, my dad, who died three years ago, invested in long-term care insurance that covers some of it and she gets nearly that amount in his pension from a large accounting firm. Fortunately for them, my dad's work terms were all pre-boomers ruining everything. Thanks to the boomers, nobody has pensions anymore. We all have to gamble on our futures by investing in the markets and hoping there's enough to avoid burdening our children. What's the solution? Stop taking drugs that keep your body healthier far longer than it was meant to, and longer than your brain. Once the dementia starts, end the statins, end the blood pressure meds, stop it all, and die naturally. Until science for the brain catches up to science for the heart, we should stop all the meds and die naturally when we were intended to.

For what it’s worth, the newest research has clearly established that lifestyle interventions in the early stages of Alzheimer’s can slow and even reverse cognitive deficits. These interventions are of the type that would also in most cases get the patient off the drugs that manage their hypertension, T2 diabetes, and many chronic illnesses rooted in inflammatory conditions in the body.

Sleep well
Eat whole foods, minimal red and processed meats - ditch UPFs, soda, alcohol etc.
Exercise regularly
Manage stress with meditation etc.

Blah blah blah I know - turns out that healthy living is really best for the brain as well as the rest of the body. But the brain struggles to want to live a healthy lifestyle when taking pills and injections is so much easier.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand how home care is so expensive. Renting an apartment is say $3k per month; hiring a caretaker (not a nurse, just someone to make sure mom stays in place, who feeds her and takes her to the bathroom) is maybe another 5k per month.
I am friends with a state paid caregiver and she is paid about 5-6k per month to take care of a bedridden dementia patient. The apartment is section 8 in that case.

$5k per month? More like $40 per hour. Differential for overtime, holidays and Sundays. More like $5000 per week.

I think if the family is willing to do some care then this is the only way to make it affordable. move mom into the basement and hire elder care for 40 hrs/week. The rest you do yourself. In some families they rotate the elderly parent between houses.

Rotating between houses is one of those ideas that sounds good in theory. We tried this and every transition resulted increased agitation and confusion for my parent. He didn't understand where he was, wandered around at night trying to find his room, and just generally did worse and worse with each move. This may work for some families but was a disaster for mine.

For the last decade I’ve been working in home care, primarily with elders and many with Alzheimer’s and related dementias. I’m an educator and attorney by education and experience but fell into this work after family caregiving and then deciding I didn’t want to get back on the legal career hamster wheel.

I’ve met some lovely families and cared for some lovely people, but the primary takeaway for me has been a firm resolve to plan my exit from this existence before I become incapacitated, and to trust in a lifelong friend to assist me if somehow I don’t get out under my own power before my marbles are too scrambled. Our plan is for her to take me out in the woods in winter and leave me there - I’ll be written off as one of the many demented victims of their own eloping.

The research I’ve done indicates that the Eskimos/Inuit practiced both senilicide and invalidicide primarily in times of crisis and limited resources. This is where we get the notion of them putting elders on an ice floe and setting them adrift in the freezing cold ocean, which was only one method at their disposal some were worse. But in general from what I’ve seen of death and know about the science of hypothermia, it wouldn’t be a horrible way to go compared to some others one could suffer. Get cold, fall asleep, stop breathing sounds better to me than a half dozen years or more a shell of my former self, incontinent and incoherent most of the time.

The USA needs federal legislation legalizing medical aid in dying (MAID) and providing for a patient to contract for such medical care while still of sound mind and have it provided them when they have decompensated to unsound mind. This is a moral imperative when the government is slashing funding for entitlements and healthcare and thus obliterating options for the poor, working and middle classes to cope with the care for a decompensating loved one for years upon years.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m glad you posted this, I don’t think people realize how expensive it is.
We really need to consider universal healthcare, and universal nursing home care.

What is the point of keeping people with dementia who are bedridden and in diapers alive? I ask in all seriousness. Would anyone want to live like that?

I think about what would have happened a hundred years ago. There were no antibiotics so maybe you would go for a walk or pick berries and get a scratch and it gets infected. Boom you get sepsis and pass awaybat a ripe old age. Dementia runs in my family and Ibhave instructed my husband to send me out to the berry patch behind our house when the time comes.

What other option is there?

I plan to keep horseback riding into my old age. My horses have been trying to kill me for years so I figure once I get weak and unbalanced and mentally slow enough, they can finish the job.

My plan is a winter hike in the woods with a bottle of vodka. I am only half kidding.

I am also only half-kidding when I tell my kids that I’m going to go for a midnight swim.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People are missing the fact that if there was a legal way to euthanize seniors, you'd have POS kids trying to off their parents prematurely so they can get their inheritance.

Honestly there boomers are planning to drain every cent

Of their own money?

DP here
Or what they inherited from their parents. Their parents grew up in the depression and truly knew how to scrimp and save.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People are missing the fact that if there was a legal way to euthanize seniors, you'd have POS kids trying to off their parents prematurely so they can get their inheritance.

Honestly there boomers are planning to drain every cent

Of their own money?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People are missing the fact that if there was a legal way to euthanize seniors, you'd have POS kids trying to off their parents prematurely so they can get their inheritance.

Honestly there boomers are planning to drain every cent

If the « boomers » you are referring to worked hard and scrimped and saved to have enough to pay for their retirement, why shouldn’t every cent of that money be used for their care? That’s what they saved for, that’s what the money is there for.

They can have saved all they want. They’ll have to pay through their nose for decent care for their useless selves in old age. And people will be resentful that so much money is being spent on a useless person.

What “people” will be resentful? And why? The parents are using their own money, that’s they saved over many years.

One of my parents had dementia, one did not. They used most of their saved up money for their care, with a relatively small amount left at the end for my sibling and me. If it had run out, we would have taken care of them.

They both worked blue collar jobs all their lives. They were extremely frugal so they could save and invest. Their care in old age was the purpose of those savings- why would any “people” be resentful of their money being used for their care? Especially when their own kids did not have to pay a penny for their care?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m glad you posted this, I don’t think people realize how expensive it is.
We really need to consider universal healthcare, and universal nursing home care.

What is the point of keeping people with dementia who are bedridden and in diapers alive? I ask in all seriousness. Would anyone want to live like that?

I think about what would have happened a hundred years ago. There were no antibiotics so maybe you would go for a walk or pick berries and get a scratch and it gets infected. Boom you get sepsis and pass awaybat a ripe old age. Dementia runs in my family and Ibhave instructed my husband to send me out to the berry patch behind our house when the time comes.

What other option is there?

I plan to keep horseback riding into my old age. My horses have been trying to kill me for years so I figure once I get weak and unbalanced and mentally slow enough, they can finish the job.

My plan is a winter hike in the woods with a bottle of vodka. I am only half kidding.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand how home care is so expensive. Renting an apartment is say $3k per month; hiring a caretaker (not a nurse, just someone to make sure mom stays in place, who feeds her and takes her to the bathroom) is maybe another 5k per month.
I am friends with a state paid caregiver and she is paid about 5-6k per month to take care of a bedridden dementia patient. The apartment is section 8 in that case.

$5k per month? More like $40 per hour. Differential for overtime, holidays and Sundays. More like $5000 per week.

I think if the family is willing to do some care then this is the only way to make it affordable. move mom into the basement and hire elder care for 40 hrs/week. The rest you do yourself. In some families they rotate the elderly parent between houses.

I am the very first PP.
Since the lady is bedridden there’s changing and feeding every few hrs; there’s repositioning a few times a day and bathing/change of bedsheets every week I think. The caregiver can leave for a few hrs at a time. No need for anyone to sit with the patient 24/7 since she can’t elope.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand how home care is so expensive. Renting an apartment is say $3k per month; hiring a caretaker (not a nurse, just someone to make sure mom stays in place, who feeds her and takes her to the bathroom) is maybe another 5k per month.
I am friends with a state paid caregiver and she is paid about 5-6k per month to take care of a bedridden dementia patient. The apartment is section 8 in that case.

$5k per month? More like $40 per hour. Differential for overtime, holidays and Sundays. More like $5000 per week.

That’s what she is getting from the state, 283 hrs at about $20/hr. She seems content! Sleeps at night. Changes and feeds her charge during the day. She isn’t busy 24/7 and can go to stores etc. due to her charge being bedridden so she can’t elope.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m glad you posted this, I don’t think people realize how expensive it is.
We really need to consider universal healthcare, and universal nursing home care.

What is the point of keeping people with dementia who are bedridden and in diapers alive? I ask in all seriousness. Would anyone want to live like that?

The funny things is that my neighbor caregiver tells her charge “hey drink up that water, you wanna die of dehydration or what?” And she drinks up. It’s scary how people cling to life.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand how home care is so expensive. Renting an apartment is say $3k per month; hiring a caretaker (not a nurse, just someone to make sure mom stays in place, who feeds her and takes her to the bathroom) is maybe another 5k per month.
I am friends with a state paid caregiver and she is paid about 5-6k per month to take care of a bedridden dementia patient. The apartment is section 8 in that case.

The state paid caretaker is only working 8-12 hours a shift. The day has 24 hours in it, so you need to double or triple the 6k a month. My in laws in home care cost 22K a month (through an agency) and that was 3 years ago.

My (second hand) experience is in CA. Here it’s usually 283 hrs o care per month at the max (some ppl get more with complicated cases but my neighbor gets 283). She is bedridden. Her caregiver feeds and changes her but otherwise there is no work except some bathing and repositioning. I am not saying it’s an easy job but it’s not a $15k per month job is what I’m saying.

It’s harder when dementia patients roam around but usually there’s a fall and if no surgery then they are contained after.

Anonymous wrote:People all over the world care for their parents at home. I dont understand this issue and ehy we should be so different. And at some point won't robots do a lot of this care anyway?

People don’t live as long there. Also people are more realistic about dementia care: it’s just basic feeding and cleaning that’s provided, no other bells and whistles.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People are missing the fact that if there was a legal way to euthanize seniors, you'd have POS kids trying to off their parents prematurely so they can get their inheritance.

Honestly there boomers are planning to drain every cent

Exactly, I don’t have a horse in this race as my parent is poor as a church mouse but I can’t believe how much money is wasted on elder care.

Anonymous wrote:My other is turning 90 this week and going on her third year in memory care at about $11,000 a month. Fortunately, my dad, who died three years ago, invested in long-term care insurance that covers some of it and she gets nearly that amount in his pension from a large accounting firm. Fortunately for them, my dad's work terms were all pre-boomers ruining everything. Thanks to the boomers, nobody has pensions anymore. We all have to gamble on our futures by investing in the markets and hoping there's enough to avoid burdening our children. What's the solution? Stop taking drugs that keep your body healthier far longer than it was meant to, and longer than your brain. Once the dementia starts, end the statins, end the blood pressure meds, stop it all, and die naturally. Until science for the brain catches up to science for the heart, we should stop all the meds and die naturally when we were intended to.

My neighbor who im friendly with is a caregiver to a bedridden dementia patient (paid) and her charge doesn’t take any meds but has been bedridden for about 6 years and is 84 or 86 now. No signs of going out.