I'm 48 and was diagnosed with EOAD in the fall of 2007. I've been taking Namenda and Aricept since then. I'm wondering if anyone knows whether life insurance is available for someone like me and the name of an agent or company. I have a 10 year old and before I was diagnosed, I forgot about payment of monthly premiums and my policy lapsed. I'd appreciate any info about this subject.
This is way out of my area of expertise. The only thing I know about is some organizations such as AAA (automobile) will sometimes offer their members life insurance for which you don't have to answer any questions or take a physical. They're not really huge policies and aren't the cheapest, of course, but if you found two or three of those ... ?
This isn't the same thing, but have you looked into the various support programs available from Federal, state, and local organizations? If you go to:
(quotation marks and all) and found a bunch of stuff ... including a warning about trying to buy multiple no-physical policies all at one time. You might want to ask a broker what would happen if you bought one policy now, and another in, say 18 months or 2 years, etc.
It tells you some things to look out for when trying to get a no-physical life insurance policy; and it has "calculator" tools to help you decide how much you need -- the one I noticed in particular is "cost of raising children".
Welcome egd. Sunshyne jumped my gun while I was Googling no-physical life insurance. I agree that you have to be careful not to get scammed. Going thru a broker might be the safest way to go.
I do not know if you are aware of this, but on the Alzheimer's Association website - www.alz.org - there is a section on their message boards specifically for those diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease to chat with others who have the disease - I'll bet you could find answers from people there. Also, I cannot recommend this highly enough - Last year at the Alzheimer's Public Policy Forum, I met Diane Thornton - she is now only 47 years old, and was diagnosed with EOAD about 4 years ago. She writes a blog about living with dementia - it is thought provoking and wonderful. This is the link to copy and paste. http://www.everydayhealth.com/blog/dealing-with-dementia-at-an-early-age/
If that doesn't work, just write "Diane Thornton Blog" into Google, and click the very first topic that comes up.
egd, several of us belong to the Alz Assoc forums as well as Spouse. They have one discussion forum specifically for patients with EOAD, one for families/patients with EOAD, one for Caregivers, etc. The Caregiver forum is by far the most active, so if you decide to post over there, post on both the Caregivers and the families/patients with EOAD. The "main menu" for the discussion forums is at:
http://alzheimers.infopop.cc/eve
I think you will like the people on the EOAD forums. Some of them were diagnosed quite a few years ago (e.g., younghope1 and SnowyLynne and Lisa 428), and are still going strong.
Several of them post regularly on the Caregiver forum, too, which we really appreciate. It helps us understand what's going on in our loved ones' minds.
Be very careful with the fine print. I thought a policy in the AARP bulletin looked good with guraranteed acceptance with no physical unless you had end stage Renal Disease. But, I believe it was just good until age 80 and non-renewable or underwritten then. Which in our case meant we would be paying premiums for 6 years and then policy elapsed. In order for an Insurance Co. to take a older person with no physical I would imagine this situation would apply to most.
My son just contacted me about a friend whose father is 58 and has EOAD. No wife, no family around. He's in Sonoma, CA. Does anyone have any experience with Alz help in that area, or with getting SSDI if that would help, in CA?
briegull--Several years ago, in Los Angeles, two guys who were diagnosed with EOAD themselves put together a conference on the subject. I think both of them were members of the Alz Assn's national Early Stage Advisory Board. One of them was Jay Smith, can't remember the other man's name. So I would think that someone should contact the Alz Assn--there must be several chapters in California--but clearly they are some of the more progressive chapters and will probably be able to provide him a lot of information.