Cost of hiring an Elder care expert

The new York Times wrote an article September 25th 2009 highlighting the cost of what is to take care of some one who is needing skilled care. In this article they describe the life of a woman that is suffering from Alzheimer's and that will be needing assisted care because her husband is also in his mid 80's. The costs for just the consultation to figure out what you need to concentrate on and what solutions may exist will set cost around $200. Then you move on to the Assessment where the care manager with the patient, speak with family members and doctors, and assess the living arrangement to more clearly understand the patients situation and challenges. That will cost between $500-$1,200. Then there is the issue of continuing care which could range from having nurses live with you or having the patient live in a facility. Which will run either a hourly cost or will be a flat monthly fee. Elder care is not cheap and is only going to be getting more expensive with the number of people that will be reaching the ages at which they need skilled care.


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/26/health/26patient.html

National Center on Women and Aging 2002 National Poll Women 50+

In 2002 National Center on Women and Aging conducted a survey and contained questions pertaining to Elder care. The first question asked how they would rank certain things they wish would be changed and 86.6% of them answered that they would like to see Improvements in the availability & affordability of child and elder care. Of those surveyed 14.9% said that affording good child and elder care is one of the most important things faced by woman as a whole. While only 7.3% of woman 50+ feel that Affording good child and elder care is important. This poll demonstrates how opinions have changed in just 7 years.



http://iasp.brandeis.edu/womenandaging/poll_topline.pdf

Generation X and Elder Care

This poll is about the member of Generation X and their knowledge of what long term care would mean for them.

Nearly 60 percent [of Generation X respondents] mistakenly believe their current policies provide coverage or they do not know if they are already covered. Long-term care insurance provides coverage for long-term care.

In order to finance their long-term care, 36 percent say they would rely on government assistance, such as Medicaid, to provide for long-term care. While Medicaid often provides coverage for long-term care services to qualifying low-income Americans, many people have to spend down their savings to the point of poverty in order to quality for this assistance. Others say they would use their retirement savings (26 percent), sell their assets (24 percent), rely on other insurance products (22 percent), or rely on family and friends (13 percent).

This poll shows that the people of Generation X do not understand what it means to receive assistance because they in order to receive it they would have to reduce their life to the poverty line. This poll was also interesting because it shows a perspective other than that of the Baby Boomers.

http://genxfinance.com/2009/04/16/poll-generation-x-feels-unprepared-for-long-term-care-costs-are-you-prepared/

Another Blog about Elder Care

This person has been documenting their care for an aunt suffering from Alzheimer's. In this blog there is a a pseudo poll which we have talked about in class. There are only three options and the only way some one would take the poll is if they visited the site making it unscientific.

http://www.squidoo.com/theeldercarestruggle

Sample Poll

While searching for things pertaining to the topic of elder care I came across this poll. It is a sample poll that could be conducted, and I believe it is being conducted by Gallup. It is sponsored by USA TODAY and ABC NEWS POLL. The poll is 41 questions long and is targeting 550 Baby Boomers. It was also conducted by phone. This might actually be the poll that I first reported on in my first blog posting. This poll demonstrates the the stuff we have talked about in class like the sample population and the method as to how the poll was conducted.

http://brain.gallup.com/documents/questionnaire.aspx?STUDY=P0705018

Texas and Elder Care

This poll is from June of 2008, before our very publicized health care debate in the United States. This poll asked the question as to wether or not back a local legislator if they oppose a medicaid rate boost the results were the following:

57% of Texas voters are less likely to support their local state legislator if they opposed boosting seniors' Medicaid rates, 22% are more likely to do so. 12% say it makes no difference; 9% were unsure or refused. The Baselice Associates poll of 801 registered Texas voters was conducted 4/30-5/4, and has an error margin of +/- 3.5%.

At the time this poll was conducted the results make a lot of sense because while Texas is a very conservative state they do care heavily for their elders.

ElderCare website

The government has a website for Elder care. I found it very informative. By clicking on the resources tab on the top of the website I was able to go to a wide variety of facts some ranging from the warning signs of dementia to hospice care and even a topic of seniors with HIV. This website is a good resource for finding out more information.


http://www.eldercare.gov/Eldercare.NET/Public/Home.aspx <----That is the website home page.