dementia Tag

You may not be aware of it, but the State of New Jersey has an “information hub” pertaining to Covid-19 issues. You can sign up to be on its email list so that you receive regular updates. If you go to the hub site and scroll down on the home page you’ll find the sign-up box.  For those who are watching over the care of loved...

Much of our work in the area of guardianships, probate and estate administration involves our County Surrogates.  As we continue to adjust to working with COVID-19, be aware that each Surrogate Office is adjusting their hours and policies to deal with the pandemic. The overview of changed hours and policies in each county can be found here.  In Union County, the new hours are Mon. & Thurs....

I have encountered the following crisis too many times. A frail elder is living at home, and since the home is safe and nice, is happily aging in place. Once the homeowner reaches the point of hiring a home health aide, they start using  up their savings. At that point, they  place a reverse mortgage on the home. This provides a significant amount of cash that can be drawn out month after...

If you are caring for a person with Alzheimers’ dementia, you are probably seeing a number of behavioral changes that are difficult to understand and challenging to respond to. These are sometimes called “neuropsychiatric symptoms,” and they span the spectrum from apathy and depression to wandering, disinhibition, irritable verbal onslaughts, agitated pacing, and...

Followers of this blog know that if a person applies for Medicaid to pay for nursing home care (or assisted living or home care), they have to provide five years’ of financial records and prove to the agency just what they spent every dollar on during the five year look-back period which immediately precedes the application. If the applicant can’t  prove that the dollars were spent...

“No matter what, please keep me out of a nursing home!” How often do people hear their parents say this, as the parents enter their most senior years. The reality is that aging in place is a complex but achievable endeavor for most people. Whether you are the person who hopes to “age in place,” or you are the person who will have responsibility to make it happen, you...

I discussed in a previous post that increasing numbers of individuals with intellectual disabilities are living into their 60’s. What is now being seen is that the aging process for that child — including diseases of old age such as dementia — may start occurring when they are in their 50’s. The parent(s) may be in their 70’s or 80’s, with health care...

I just came across a great article in the Journal of Family Practice (January 2015) by Marisa Mendola PhD and Barry D. Weiss, MD, called “Addressing Alzheimers: A pragmatic approach.”       JFP_06401_Article1   The article is, of course, addressed to physicians who may be noticing signs of cognitive impairment in their patients or who have been alerted that “there seems to be...

The Medicaid program for long-term care was created by Congress decades ago and is administered by the States and their myriad separate counties. Did you know that there are at least 11 bodies of law that interpret this  byzantine program? From top to bottom we have the Federal Medicaid statutes (42 USC 1396); the Social Security statutes pertaining to the SSI program (42 USC 1382); SSI...

Tuesday evening I was privileged to participate in a lively panel at the JCC in Scotch Plains that was answering  questions on a wide range of elder care/ elder law issues. The panelists were terrific — Michele Morandi, D.O., geriatric physician based in Union and affiliated with Center for Hope Hospice https://centerforhope.com/ ; Chris Kaiser, MSW, LCSW, Director of the Older Adult...