Over the next 6 weeks, I’m releasing my most valuable gems about how to get help paying for nursing home care. One new secret about where to get help and the kind of dangers you might encounter if you do nothing.

Why?

Because I want to help you know where you can find help, and what mistakes to avoid.

I want to make sure that even if you’ve already unknowingly made a “mistake,” there may be things you can do to keep from experiencing huge penalties.

To get an email with each new installment, go to www.LearnMedicaid.com/hammond to enter your name and email. You don’t want to miss out.

- Day 1: You’ll begin to discover how NOT to go totally broke when you have long term care costs.
- Day 1, part 2: 7 Secrets to Surviving Medicaid Spend Down… and what it means for you
- Day 2: When Medicare no longer cares for you… and it’s sooner than almost all seniors think!

I challenge you to take my ecourse, “Don’t Go Broke in a Nursing Home” so that you and your loved one don’t end up unnecessarily out of money and out of options.

On the first day of my series, today, I’m filling you in on how to keep from making 3 Big Money Mistakes that many seniors unknowingly make! Click below to sign up:

www.learnmedicaid.com/hammond

One of the most rewarding aspects of my work and service is learning about extraordinary experts who can help our clientele. They just genuinely care about helping caregivers.

One such extraordinary person is Jo “Hurricane” Huey, who has worked in every capacity as a caregiver.

She started out giving individual care to seniors with dementia. She eventually headed several different facilities.

Jo also cared for her own mother, who had vascular dementia (a disease with symptoms and care strategies that parallel Alzheimer’s).

Because of her many years working in every capacity of Alzheimer’s care, Jo created the 10 Absolutes of Alzheimer’s Caregiving.

Her main goal is to help caregivers do the best they can, while taking care of themselves at the same time.

By clicking the following link, you’ll find an MP3 recording entitled “Preserving Your Mental, Emotional, Physical and Psychological Health as a Caregiver.” Many of my clients have found the information in this interview with Jo to be life-changing and refreshing for them.

I’ve arranged to get the audio interview for you. If you listen closely, you’ll discover the following valuable insights:

- 8 new methods to keep from dangerously overburdening yourself. These new methods eliminate stress which accompanies Alzheimer’s caregiving. Without these secret stress reducers you could dangerously overburden yourself and cause yourself health issues.
- 4 simple activities to reverse caregiver burnout
- Most caregivers don’t know it, but caregivers have a much higher rate of illness and are 63% more likely to die than non-caregivers. In the MP3, you’ll find out one simple, effective way to prevent this that hardly anyone knows about.

To get the free MP3 audio now, visit:
www.AlzheimersResourceKit.com/hammond/resources/preserving.html

This is not the kind of material you’ll hear anywhere else.

To help you reduce your chances of financial loss, and maintain quality of life for you and your loved one when a long-term care facility looms, The Elder and Disability Law Firm has developed a Family Savings and Protection Consultation for Alzheimer’s families.

One of our top team members will conduct this free consultation over the telephone with you. We have found this to be the most efficient and private means of informing you of your options.

We realize the laws are complicated, confusing, and constantly changing. We provide this free consultation to help ensure you and your loved one an easier and more enjoyable future. The sooner you begin planning, the less of your money will be lost to the costs of this terrible disease. This means planning ahead is critically important.

What we accomplish in this free, zero-nonsense consultation session is:

- Help you determine the legal structures that can protect your family’s savings while there’s still time.
- Demonstrate how you can safely (without penalty) set aside money so your loved one can have funds available for a better quality of life.
- How to protect your loved one from being penalized for common mistakes they didn’t even know they were making.

The session is conducted by one of the top experts in our company, who has worked with hundreds of families to set up legal structures that protect the families’ savings and allow for a better, less stressful, quality of life.

Please be assured that this consultation will not be a thinly disguised sales presentation; it will consist only of expert guidance provided by my firm.

To secure a convenient time for this consultation, please call my office at (913) 338-5713. We will advise you as to the available time slots for your free personalized and confidential consultation.

We look forward to speaking with you soon.

Just received this email from one of our readers:

Dear William,

“I’ve been reading your posts for a little while now. I understand you are able to put money away so that the government and the nursing home can’t get at it. I want to make sure that everything I do with my money is above-board… are your practices legal and ethical?”
Jane P.

Dear Jane:

This is a concern I have sometimes heard. Hardworking people like you want to make sure their money is safe, but also that they’re being honest and up-front.

It can seem that we’re “hiding” money, but we’re actually not.

Let me explain.

As an attorney, we must only take legal and honest actions that work within the structure of laws that are in place. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be in business for long!

However as an Elder Law attorney, I specialize in interpreting those laws for hard working people like yourself, so that you can take actions that give you the best benefit.

An Elder Law attorney doesn’t hide any assets from anyone. In fact, we actually compile a huge list of all you own, clearly explain all the actions we take together, and present it in a big, fat binder to the Medicaid office.

We actually volunteer the information!

Think of what happens around tax time. Some folks calculate their own taxes. But most people know that an experienced tax expert will get them the most money back when they file.

That’s essentially what an elder law attorney does. We navigate the complex ins and outs of the laws that affect seniors.

Elder Law attorneys actually use these laws to help you keep from losing everything due to expensive long term care costs.

Any attorney who breaks the law is an attorney who won’t be practicing much longer. I make sure I take only honest, legal actions that will let you keep what you can keep, and spend what must be spent.

To find out more about the ways that an Elder Law attorney can work with your finances to get you the maximum benefit, take a look at my free guide on the subject, “The Alzheimer’s Legal Survival Guide”.

Simply take a look at items 91-94 in my Alzheimer’s Legal Survival Guide at www.AlzheimersResourceKit.com/hammond/resources/legalguide.html to find out more.

At my firm, we offer a free consultation to help you figure out what your options are.

We specialize in disability and elder law so when we look at your situation, we can help you qualify for Medicaid coverage or suggest any other viable options.

Call my office at (913) 338-5713 for your free consultation. At the end of the call, you’ll know the next step you need to take. We’ll even point you in the direction of resources that can help you for areas outside of our services.

There is no obligation to you… the call is completely free.

Our goal is for you and your loved ones to have peace of mind and to keep enough assets to let you live with dignity.

First, protect yourself. If you try to help your loved one on your own, you could seriously injure yourself and the whole situation will snowball.

If you must help by yourself, there are techniques such as a gait belt—a strong canvas belt designed specifically for assisting with ambulation. If your loved one starts to fall and you are close enough, you can grab the belt and help lower them to the floor, breaking the hardness of the fall. However, this technique only works if you are able to do so without injuring yourself. You can purchase a gait belt through a durable medical equipment company or get one through the home care agency you are working with.

If you can’t get your loved one up and have no one close enough to help, call 911. Most emergency response teams have been trained in dealing with the issues of Alzheimer’s disease, and understand situations like wandering, falling, and choking. They are more than willing to come to your home and assist you. They can also assess your loved one for injury and transport them to the hospital if necessary. Many caretakers have who have been desperate for help call 911, and they report being treated with the utmost care and respect; do not hesitate to call.

Medical alert devices worn on the wrist or around the neck can also assist in calling for help; you push the button and soon, help arrives. These systems are sold through several different companies and can be researched on the internet.

While every person with Alzheimer’s disease goes through the disease differently, it is more than likely that your loved one is going to walk, wander, or pace. Caregivers must allow this behavior by structuring their loved one’s environment to be as safe as possible. People with Alzheimer’s have perception difficulties; black sections of carpet may look like a “black hole” that should be stepped over, or a shiny tile floor may appear wet. Good lighting with minimal glare will reduce these kinds of misperceptions and reduce anxiety.

Minimize clutter around the home. Items like footstools, baskets on the floor, floor plants, or papers and magazines lying around will increase confusion and can be unsafe. Remove these obstacles.

There are many products that can help caregivers increase security for their loved one and decrease their own anxiety. Bells, alarms, and locks on the doors can aid caregivers in keeping track of the person with dementia. Baby monitors are also good for monitoring, especially during the night. If your loved one has trouble with falling out of bed, put their mattress on the floor and put an extra mattress on the floor beside them to help prevent injury.

Information on purchasing home safety devices can be found at www.alzstore.com, other home safety devices can be found at radio shack, and baby monitors can be found at most stores that carry baby products.

Typically, those who are around someone with depression tend to notice it much more than the person suffering. If you begin to notice that your loved one is sleeping a lot, has lost interest in activities they once enjoyed, exhibiting a change in eating habits or weight (loss or gain), or being in an overall “down” mood, you may be seeing signs of depression. Comments like “I’m no good anymore,” “I don’t want to do anything,” or “I wish I were dead” should be taken seriously and attended to. If you detect symptoms of depression in your loved one, it is crucial that you have them examined by a physician. Even if the physician has already diagnosed your loved one with dementia, they should still assess your loved one for depression, because depression can accompany dementia.

Antidepressant can help to alleviate the symptoms in a few weeks. Other interventions are good nutrition, good amounts of sleep (not too much and not too little), and exercise.

Though pain itself does not cause dementia to worsen, pain can cause increased confusion, agitation, and depression in your loved one. The possibility of pain needs continuing assessment.

The issue of pain can be a difficult one to deal with in caring for a person with dementia. Often, a person with dementia will find that they are unable to express pain they are feeling or the needs they have, and as a result will begin to act out in other ways, such as wandering, agitation, grimacing, sleeping, or simply shutting down. If your loved one begins exhibiting a sudden change in behavior like increased confusion, it is possible that something is causing discomfort or pain—it could be anything from shoes that are too tight to an infection.

In regard to treatment for your loved one, the simple answer is that “pain is pain,” whether Alzheimer’s is involved or not. When working with cancer patients, for example, the goal is to eliminate pain as much as possible and to keep the patient as comfortable as possible. It should be no different with individuals with Alzheimer’s. No matter what the stage of their disease, your loved one should be as pain-free and comfortable as possible. A UTI (urinary tract infection) can cause pain; symptoms include inflammation, burning, and itching. Since treatment for this condition is not invasive and will ease the discomfort, treatment will definitely increase your loved one’s quality of life.

If a person with Alzheimer’s has a history of arthritis or other painful illness, continued treatment according to doctor’s orders is advisable to aid in the prevention of pain. Other types of pain such as headache, backache, sore throat or foot pain will also need individual assessment and treatment.

The bottom line is that as a caregiver, your goal should be to keep your loved one as comfortable as you can. This means not only treating pain as it comes up, but knowing what to look for. Pain can cause a person to become depressed, and a good indicator of pain in your loved one may be a sudden decrease in interest in things they usually enjoy; however this can also be a symptom of non-pain-related depression, so those issues may become a guessing game, and seeking a doctor’s advice will be beneficial.

This is a very tough situation; both for your mother and for your family. A family meeting with the oncologist concerning the cancer would help to ensure that all of you are on the same page. In a meeting like this, the doctor can answer any specific questions you have regarding the cancer, prognosis, and treatment options. It is more than likely that the doctor will recommend that you not be too aggressive or invasive with treatment; any type of operation or aggressive treatment will cause increased confusion for your mother. If surgery becomes a necessity, be sure you understand the risks involved.

Your doctor can also order hospice services. Hospice not only assists families dealing with a loved one with cancer, but also patients in the late stages of dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. Hospice is a wonderful organization that provides support, education, and care for loved ones and families of loved ones going through these difficult diseases. The goal of hospice is to keep your loved one out of the hospital and in her own home; to keep her comfortable and pain free, and to have the best quality of life possible.

This topic has been debated quite a bit, and the general consensus is that it really depends on the person. You know your loved one better than anyone; if you think he or she can handle it, then the answer is probably yes. You have to think about how it will affect them and whether telling them is of any benefit. It may also be useful to consider how he or she has handled stressful situations in the past.

If the person who has died is someone your loved one saw every day and will be missed, it may be beneficial to inform your loved one. The difficult part of this is that due to the short term memory loss, your loved one will more than likely forget and keep asking you about the person. At that time you will have to decide again whether to keep retelling the new or to use “therapeutic fibs.” Therapeutic fibs are ways to protect the person with dementia by responding to their questions without upsetting them unnecessarily. You can try telling your loved one about the deceased person and see how it goes, but if he or she continues to ask, you can say that the person isn’t here right now. You can say he or she isn’t here, and you’re not sure where they are, but you know that they are okay and in a safe place.

Whether or not to tell them about a death also depends on the stage of your loved one’s disease. In the early to middle stages of dementia, you may feel obligated to tell your loved one about a death, whereas in the later stages, telling probably wouldn’t be beneficial. No matter what the stage, if the deceased person was not around your loved one on a regular basis, telling your loved one may not be beneficial.

The same issue arises if your loved one asks about their parents. Often, your loved one’s parents have been gone for many years, but because the person is drawing on long-term memory, he or she is thinking about them again. The best way to handle this is through validation; you can say, “I know your parents aren’t here now and you miss them, but they are okay and they know where you are.” Then the two of you can reminisce.